About two months after it hosted a Project Initiation Workshop on Wednesday, April 29, 2015 in Abuja, Nigeria has commissioned the British environmental consulting firm of Ricardo-AEA to produce its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), a document that lists actions countries intend to take under a new global agreement. The firm is expected to complete its assignment in September 2015, when the end product will be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
James Chidi Okeuhie (left) with Chioma Amudi (Senior Scientific Officer, DCC)
Four Nigerian scientists – two consultants and two officials of the Federal Ministry of Environment’s Department of Climate Change (DCC) – will work with officials of Ricardo-AEA (three of them) to execute the project. The Ricardo-AEA team comprises Hans Verolme (team leader and renowned climate policy expert), Iain Morrow (mitigation expert) and Chris Dodwell (UNFCCC and INDC expert). The Nigerians include Prof Olukayode Oladipo (nation’s leading climate expert), James Chidi Okeuhie (climate expert), Bayo Adekoje (DCC) and Chioma Amudi (DCC).
Verolme on Monday, June 29, 2015 in Abuja listed tasks to be carried out to include, besides an Inception programme, Stocktaking that features literature review and data gathering to produce a baseline report; Mitigation Analysis that involves projects of future emissions, identification of mitigation potential, long-list of possible actions and costing of options and co-benefits, to produce a mitigation potential report; as well as INDC Mitigation Contribution, that entails technical support to government decision making process, to produce brief paper on narrative and options analysis.
There will likewise be Consultation on Draft INDC, comprising drafting of outline INDC along with outreach to other ministries and stakeholders, to deliver an outline draft INDC and a consultation workshop; and Capacity Building that will be carried out in parallel with other tasks by presentation of analytical approaches during in-country missions, to produce final report on priority capacity need.
Describing the 2015 INDCs as a first step that may fall short of the global climate goal, Verolme stated that scope of an INDC will vary depending on national circumstances and the depth will differ depending on data available. According to him, the sources of emission in the country are: gas flaring, land use change, deforestation, transport, agriculture, waste, as well as industrial and energy processes.
He hinted that the contents of the final product would feature high points like: National Context, Mitigation (Contribution, Information, Fair and Ambitious?), Adaptation, Planning Process and Means of Implementation.
Some 663 million people are still without an ‘improved’ source of water and some 2.36 billion do not have a basic, hygienic toilet, a joint monitoring programme by UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) and WHO (World Health Organisation) has revealed.
Handwashing
The regular update is the last report on progress and access to drinking water and sanitation ahead of the expiration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of lofty UN ambitions which set out in 2000 to halve the proportion of people without access to water and sanitation, among other goals.
As these goals expire this year, the goal on water has been met overall, but with wide gaps remaining, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
The goal on sanitation, however, has failed dramatically. At present rates of progress it would take 300 years for everyone in sub-Saharan Africa to get access to a sanitary toilet.
At the last update, in 2014, 748 million people were found to not have access to an ‘improved’ water source and 2.5 billion were without basic, sanitary toilets.
‘Improved’ water sources are protected from contamination and usually safe to drink. However UNICEF and the WHO have also warned that as many as 1.8 billion people are still at risk of going without access to water that is both safe and affordable.
Nigeria has recorded practically no progress in the area of sanitation. In 1990, 38% of the population had access to improved sanitation. In 2015, this figure is now a woeful 29% (up just a meagre 1% from 2014’s figure of 28%). The proportion of Nigeria’s population that has gained access to improved sanitation since 1990 is only 9%.
In 1990, 24% of the population was practicing open defecation. That figure in 2015 is now 25%. In 2014, it was 23% which means we’re not only worse off now than we were 25 years ago but in the past year alone, we’ve regressed by 2% in this regard.
Although the Nigerian Government hasn’t met the national target it set to ensure 75% of its population had access to safe water by 2015, we have generally done better in the area of water provision and have met the MDG target for water which was to halve the number of people without access to safe water. This year, 69% of the population now have access to safe water – an improvement of 5% from last year and an increase of 30% since the MDG goals were set in 1990. The proportion of the population that has gained access to safe water since 1990 is 48%.
WaterAid Nigeria Country Representative, Dr. Michael Ojo, said: “It is true that a lot has changed in the 25 years since the World Health Organisation/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme began to document the world’s access to drinking water and sanitation; the picture for Nigeria however has for the most part remained quite grim.
“Communities without safe water and basic toilets have higher rates of illness and are held back from economic progress. Children spend long hours fetching water instead of at school desks, parents are less able to spend time earning incomes and hospitals fill with people suffering from preventable water-borne illnesses. The burden is disproportionally felt by women and girls, who are most often tasked with fetching water and who are most at risk of harassment and worse if they are without a safe, private place to relieve themselves.
“As the UN prepares to adopt new development goals this September, mapping out ways to eradicate extreme poverty while building a healthier more sustainable world by 2030, water and sanitation must play a key role. Without these basic human rights, no society can progress. It is possible to reach everyone, everywhere with access to clean water and basic toilets by 2030 – but it will require dedicated political will and financing to achieve this.
“We cannot afford to wait another 25 years till everyone has access to safe water or in the case of sanitation, just to record minimal progress or worse still, to have regressed even further. Our goal must be to ensure that inequality is eliminated and everyone everywhere has access to safe water and basic sanitation by 2030.”
One highlight of the new JMP report is the availability of country estimates for handwashing. Estimates for Nigeria’s total population with a handwashing facility at home with soap and water is 12%.
Noteworthy among the other highlights in the UNICEF-WHO findings:
Nearly 700 million people in Africa alone don’t have a basic toilet, and over 200 million defecate in the open. Nigeria – Africa’s most populous nation and its largest economy – has actually shown worsening trends, with decreasing access and increasing open defecation.
India have more than doubled the proportion of people using improved sanitation (18 to 40%) since monitoring began in 1990 but over 560 million people in India still practice open defecation, more than half the global total of 949 million.
Since 1990, the world’s Least Developed Countries (by UN definition) have seen an increase of over 40% in the number of people without basic toilets as their population increases, although the proportion of people defecating in the open has more than halved.
While the UN goal on water has been met globally, much of this is due to rapid progress in India and China. Progress has been uneven from region to region, and very little has changed for the world’s poorest people.
Papua New Guinea, Equatorial Guinea and Angola have still only provided access to improved water to less than half of their population, and a further 14 countries remain with less than 60% coverage.
However there has been progress. Ethiopia has managed to reduce open defecation by 66% in rural areas, from 100% to just one-third of the population, and has almost eliminated the practice in urban areas. Rwanda has also managed to all but eliminate open defecation and has tripled the number of people with access to basic sanitation.
Next month world leaders will travel to the UN International Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss how to finance the new UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ahead of their finalising and adoption in New York in September. Access to clean water, basic sanitation and good hygiene, as presently outlined in Goal 6, are critical to the creation of a healthier, more equitable world.
WaterAid has also tried to push and influence for water- and sanitation-related indicators in goals on health, education and gender rights. Sanitation was among the most off-track in the MDGs, a mistake that cannot be repeated.
In all goals, careful monitoring and the use of indicators on progress, including whether the poorest are being reached with basic access, whether water is safe and affordable, and whether wastewater is safely treated, will help ensure no one is left behind and governments are held accountable for their promises.
The Federal Government said in Abuja on Thursday, July 2, 2015 that its Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would be submitted in September. Dr Samuel Adejuwon, the Director, Climate Change Department, Federal Ministry of Environment, who made this disclosure, said that Nigeria was taking its time to develop solid INDCs that would help address the impact of climate change without jeopardising its quest for development.
Dr Samuel Adejuwon, Director, Climate Change Department (CCD), Federal Ministry of Environment (FMoE) (right) with Peter Tarfa, Deputy Director at the CCD, at COP 20 in Lima, Peru
He said that the ministry would look at the country’s economic and development interests while developing the INDCs.
“The whole exercise (INDCs) will consider some priority sectors, look at the baseline and look at our needs too for development and see what we can put on the table that we are going to strive to mitigate in terms of Green House Gases. And it is not something you just rush into without understanding because you are never too sure whether the potential agreement in Paris will be legally binding,” Adejuwon said, adding that Oct. 1 had been fixed as the deadline for countries to submit their INDCs to enable UNFCCC to study the documents before the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 in Paris in December.
According to him, the requirement for countries to submit their commitments ahead of the conference is to see if they will be able to address the impact of climate change. The director, however, said that the ministry had held series of workshops to fulfill its commitment to climate change conventions and protocols as well as exploit opportunities as a party to the protocols.
He said that the country had also looked at ways of taking advantage of some funding opportunities available such as the Special Climate Change, Adaptation and Green Climate Funds.
His words: “When you see funds, to access it can be problematic. And that is part of the negotiation and that is part of what we use to do in negotiations that you (developed countries) are creating these funds then you put a condition that makes it very much difficult to access. Look at the Adaptation Fund, it was part of Kyoto Mechanism; before you can access it, you need to identify National Implementation Entity. We’ve been in this process of identification of National Implementation Entity for the past three, four years. By the time you solve this problem, they will come up with another issue and if you don’t fulfill that condition, then it becomes very difficult for you to access.“
Adejuwon, however, explained that there was the need for the Federal Government to put some structures on ground before these funds could be accessed. He, therefore, stressed the need for government to invest in research, designs and mappings as a means of reducing the impacts of climate change on the country.
“There is the need for government to look at climate change from another perspective and be proactive. For example, looking at the 2012 flooding, we should map our flood plains in Nigeria and see how vulnerable they are to the impact of climate change. After identifying the vulnerability, we also need to put other things in place to minimise the impacts of the climate change,“ he said.
INDCs are a requirement to be submitted by all parties to the UNFCCC as a major component to climate change treaty to be adopted in Paris later in 2015.
Treating a diabetes 2 patient. Photo credit: endrocrinologyadvisor.com
A study has shown that treatment with Sitagliptin does not increase the risks of major cardiovascular events or hospitalisation for heart failure
MSD, known as Merck (NYSE: MRK) in the United States and Canada, recently announced the primary results of the Trial Evaluating Cardiovascular Outcomes with Sitagliptin (TECOS), a placebo-controlled study of the cardiovascular (CV) safety of MSD’s DPP-4 inhibitor, sitagliptin.
The TECOS cardiovascular safety trial was an event-driven study designed to assess the long-term CV safety of the addition of sitagliptin to usual care, compared to usual care without sitagliptin, in patients with type 2 diabetes and established CV disease. The study enrolled more than 14,735 patients from 38 countries and was led by independent academic research collaboration between the University of Oxford Diabetes Trials Unit and the Duke University Clinical Research Institute, and was sponsored by MSD. Amongst the key findings, it was evident that there was no increase in CV-related deaths or hospitalisation for heart failure in the Sitagliptin group versus placebo.
“Patients with type 2 diabetes need antihyperglycemic medicines to help control their blood sugar. Because these patients are at increased risk for cardiovascular complications, understanding the cardiovascular safety of these medicines is important,” said study co-chair Rury Holman, Professor of Diabetic Medicine and Diabetes Trials Unit Director, University of Oxford. “The results from TECOS showed that sitagliptin did not increase the risk of cardiovascular events in a diverse group of patients with type 2 diabetes at high cardiovascular risk.”
Overall, the primary endpoint occurred in 11.4 percent (n=839) of sitagliptin-treated patients compared with 11.6 percent (n=851) of placebo-treated patients in the Intention-to-Treat (ITT) analysis, and in 9.6 percent (n=695) of patients in both the sitagliptin and placebo groups in the Per Protocol (PP) analysis. In addition, there was no increase in hospitalization for heart failure, and rates of all-cause mortality were similar in both treatment groups, which were two key secondary endpoints.
“We believe the results of TECOS provide important clinical information about the cardiovascular safety profile of sitagliptin,” said Dr. Roger M. Perlmutter, president, Merck Research Laboratories. “The TECOS CV safety trial reflects the best efforts of clinical scientists at the University of Oxford, the Duke Clinical Research Institute and MSD on behalf of patients around the world who suffer from type 2 diabetes.”
Los Katíos National Park. Photo credit: whc.unesco.org
Colombia’s Los Katíos National Park has been taken off the List of World Heritage in Danger on Tuesday, June 30 2015 at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting taking place in Bonn, Germany. The decision follows advice by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – the official advisory body on nature to the Committee.
After suffering extensive damage from illegal logging, poaching and overfishing, which proliferated in a climate of armed conflict in the area, Los Katíos was danger-listed in 2009 at the request of the government of Colombia. The park authority has now regained control of the site thanks to intensified patrolling and engaging local communities in the sustainable use of the area’s natural resources, allowing the site to be removed from the danger list.
“This is what the danger list is about: a constructive mechanism to stimulate joint efforts nationally and internationally to take concrete action in the face of imminent threats to our common heritage,” saysTim Badman, Director of IUCN’s World Heritage Programme. “Colombia took advantage of the danger listing and made every effort to start reversing the critical situation this exceptional site was in.”
Los Katíos National Park was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1994 due to its outstanding biodiversity. Bordering Panama’s Darien National Park – also a World Heritage site – the park is part of a larger area that is important for the survival of threatened species, such as Baird’s Tapir, the Giant Anteater, American Crocodile and West Indian Manatee. With no formal border crossing between Colombia and Panama, the area, known as the Darien Gap, is one of the world’s most species-rich regions of moist lowland and montane rainforest, with exceptional numbers of endemic species.
However, due to its remoteness and strategic location, forming the narrowest ‘land bridge’ between two subcontinents and between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the area is also affected by the transit of armed groups and those displaced by armed conflict, as well as drug trafficking and the illegal use of natural resources. Decades of internal armed conflict in the area have resulted in the National Park managers losing control over Los Katíos. Poverty in rural areas near the World Heritage site has also fuelled demand for its resources in the absence of alternative sources of livelihood.
While the security situation in the area is still not fully resolved, the park’s management is now in a position to operate in the entire site. An IUCN field mission in January 2015 confirmed that the steady increase in patrolling and cooperation with local communities since the park was danger-listed has had positive results, including a reduction in illegal activities.
Agreements on the sustainable use of natural resources with local communities, who are now involved in monitoring fish populations, have succeeded in containing overfishing and overharvesting of the site’s rivers and swamps.
Dialogue with the Indigenous Wounaan community, who consider parts of the park as their ancestral land, is also progressing. Their ancestral rights are now recognised, and cooperation to maintain a balance between the community’s livelihood needs and conservation objectives has become an integral part of the site’s management.
“Colombia’s efforts over the last six years to respond to complex challenges affecting both the integrity of Los Katíos National Park and the livelihoods and security of local communities have been impressive and must be sustained to secure the long-term conservation of the site,” saysTilman Jaeger, IUCN World Heritage Advisor. “Natural World Heritage sites are much more than just beautiful places – they also support people’s lives. We have all to gain by managing them in a sustainable, participatory way.”
Colombia has also re-affirmed that there is no legal basis for two large infrastructure projects, potentially threatening the park, to be constructed within the site’s boundaries. These include the last missing link of the Pan-American Highway – the world’s longest road crossing North, Central and South America, which is interrupted at the Darien Gap – and an electricity transmission corridor linking Colombia to Panama. Possible indirect impacts will have to be understood and considered if these infrastructure projects eventually take shape.
Natural World Heritage sitesare globally recognised as the world’s most important protected areas, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for their unique natural values, such as the scale of natural habitats, intactness of ecological processes, viability of populations of rare species, as well as exceptional natural beauty. One in four World Heritage sites is natural.
TheList of World Heritage in Dangeris designed to mobilise urgent, international action to protect the most threatened sites. A total of 46 sites are currently listed as ‘in danger’, including 19 – over 40% – natural sites.
IUCNis the advisory body on nature to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. Working closely with IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), IUCN evaluates sites nominated to the World Heritage List, monitors the conservation state of listed sites, promotes the World Heritage Convention as a leading global conservation tool, and provides support, advice and training to site managers, governments, scientists and local communities.
China formally committed to halting the rise in its greenhouse gas emissions within the next 15 years on Tuesday (June 30, 2015), in a much anticipated strategy to help build a U.N. climate deal in 2015.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Photo credit: cnn.com
The world’s top greenhouse gas emitter said it would invest more in clean energy and plant more carbon-absorbing forests as part of the plan.
The Chinese plan chimes with targets announced in November, when Beijing reached a key climate change deal with Washington to cap its emissions by 2030.
“China’s carbon dioxide emission will peak by around 2030 and China will work hard to achieve the target at an even earlier date,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in a statement after meeting French President Francois Hollande in Paris.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called China’s plan an “excellent sign” for the United Nations summit in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, which intends to agree a global deal to combat climate change after past failures.
China did not, however, say at what level its emissions would peak. The cap is the first set by Beijing, which had argued that it needed to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty and that developed nations must lead in climate action.
In a new element beyond the U.S.-China deal, Beijing said it would cut its CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 60-65 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. That would deepen a 40-45 percent cut already set by Beijing for 2020.
The world’s second-largest economy also aims to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption to about 20 percent by 2030, the statement said, as part of a strategy to limit more heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.
Carbon Price Up
Benchmark EU carbon prices rose after the news and were last 1.4 percent higher at 7.47 euros a tonne.
China accounts for a quarter of world greenhouse gases and its plan, submitted to the United Nations on Tuesday, means governments accounting for more than half the global total have now outlined goals for climate action beyond 2020.
About 40 countries emitting just over 30 percent of world emissions have previously submitted their plans, including the United States and the European Union. National plans will be the building blocks of a Paris accord.
Separately, the United States and Brazil pledged to increase their share of renewable energy in electricity generation.
South Korea said it would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent below business-as-usual levels, deeper than its earlier intention.
“The United States and China can no longer use inaction by the other as an excuse for ignoring the risks we all face from climate change. Both countries are acting,” said Bob Perciasepe, president of the U.S. Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions think-tank.
Many experts outside China reckon it can peak its emissions before 2030, given signs such as a fall in coal consumption in 2014. Beijing is under strong pressure to shift to renewable energies, partly to curb air pollution.
“”In our estimates the peak would be around 2025 or even earlier,” Hanna Fekete of the independent New Climate Institute think tank in Germany, which tracks pledges, told Reuters.
She said she did not think Beijing’s plan would affect the group’s estimates last year that global temperatures are set to rise by 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 Fahrenheit) by 2100, far above a U.N. ceiling of 2 degrees (3.6F).
Li Shuo, climate analyst Greenpeace China, said: “China has only ever been on defence when it comes to climate change, but today’s announcement is the first step for a more active role. For success in Paris, however, all players – including China and the EU – need to up their game. Today’s pledge must be seen as only the starting point for much more ambitious action. It does not fully reflect the significant energy transition that is already taking place in China. Given the dramatic fall in coal consumption, robust renewable energy uptake, and the urgent need to address air pollution, we believe the country can go well beyond what it has proposed today.”
Samantha Smith, Global Climate and Energy Initiative leader, WWF, stated: “This is the first major developing country emitter to set a total emissions peak target. In doing so, China has committed to both global climate security and to a transformational energy transition at home. We emphasise the importance of the fact that China has made commitments beyond its responsibility as a developing country. But we hope that China will continue to find ways to reduce its emissions, which will in turn drive global markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency.”
Bi Xinxin, coordinator CAN China, emphasised: “It is clear that the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) which was lodged by China today is a serious step forward for the country’s transformation to low carbon and climate resilient development. Already a world leader in renewable energy, the government has announced it will roll out as much low carbon energy as the entire US electricity system by 2030. While the plan is indeed a strong effort, it should be viewed as the floor upon which additional efforts will be built. There are early indications that the country could exceed the targets it has set for itself. Bold actions are required from all levels of governments as well as from the indispensable private sector and civil society. China’s commitment towards the Paris agreement is an important milestone on the way to Paris and can catalyse stronger action from the rest of the world.”
Workers labour to make a living. Sadly, for many the wages of work has been death. The occupational hazards that workers face is a challenge for those in the formal as well as in the informal sectors. Stringent regulatory and control measures as well as strong and united labour unions are needed to halt the menace.
Nnimmo Bassey, Director, HOMEF
We note that the health impacts of extractive activities swallow up lives beyond the mine pits as evidenced by the death of over 400 children from lead poisoning in Zamfara State, Nigeria. The extractive sector is equally an arena of conflicts and has thrown up severe human rights abuses including displacement of communities, toxic work conditions, and the burying alive of artisanal miners in Ghana, Tanzania and other locations. It also includes outright shooting and killing of miners, as was the case in Marikana, South Africa.
This Sustainability Academy aims to highlight the fact that workers and communities are at the frontlines of exposure to toxic chemicals that often result in fatalities. Some of these impacts are subtle and do not immediately become manifest. Indeed, while communities may live the rims or fence lines of extractive pits, workers are literally in the belly of the beasts. If the impacts on communities are so deadly, it is not difficult to agree that workers are often worse off. Workers are part of communities and as we see especially with regard to artisanal mining, communities get co-opted as work teams by economic necessities or by the imposed daunting struggles for survival.
As the chisels, pickaxes and hammers hack away at rock faces to extract wealth and profit, the dusts clothe workers with toxins that leave them gasping for breath. Despite the health and safety measures announced by extractive sector corporations workers sometimes are not aware of the dangers that their daily toil portend. Sadly, however, some workers fully aware that they are making a dying, not a living, as they toil in dangerous activities continue in silence due to fear of job loses.
In a recent article, the ITUC general secretary declared poignantly – If You Expose Us, We’ll Expose You stressing that occupational cancer is not a mystery disease because there has been abundant evidence that workers are unreasonably exposed to danger while working with cancer-inducing chemicals.
Examples of such exposures include of workers dealing with asbestos and those that work in industries like the petrochemicals with high presence of benzene. According to the ITUC leader, “Wherever stricter controls are proposed, industry representatives or their hired guns appear, challenging the science and predicting an economic catastrophe.”
It is well known, for example, that polluting industries spend huge sums of money in research twisted to help them deny the reality of climate change. The same is true with efforts by toxic industry to block regulations seeking to curb the use of certain chemicals and by implication the exposure of workers to harm. To do this they churn out tonnes of publications and glossy so-called sustainability reports while actually they are promoting in paralysis by analysis.
Almost 1 million workers die every year from exposure to toxic chemicals – in the extractive sector and others. Up to 2.3 million persons get exposed to work-related diseases or accidents every year.
We have no doubt that our instigator at this Sustainability Academy, a veteran health workers unionist, will educate us on the health impacts workers in the extractive sector are exposed to. Permit me to close this short opening words by reminding us that the grave environmental and health impact caused by the oil and gas industry in Nigeria is an open sore that salt is being added to daily and cannot be allowed to continue to fester. Routine gas flaring, rampant oil spills and reckless disposal of toxic wastes including drilling cuts and produced water, have health implications not just for our environment and community health but equally on oil and gas sector workers. With life expectancy standing at just above 40 years in our oil field communities and at a paltry 54 years (some say 43 years) nationally, no one can claim to be exempt from the urgent need for actions to clean our air, land, water and workplaces.
The struggle to secure the health of workers, communities and our planet is an epic struggle against a ravenous system that feeds on profits and swims in the sweat and blood of workers. The time has come for the dichotomy between workers and community must b eliminated. To change this system it is inescapable that all relevant forces – labour and all of us – must team up to confront reckless myopic consumption and a crass lack of concern about the future and the planet.
By Nnimmo Bassey (Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation at HOMEF)
In the wake of the G7’s announcement to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degree Fahrenheit), UN climate negotiators from the world’s most vulnerable nations have questioned whether 2 degrees is too dangerous.
Should the 2 degree goal be ditched? Photo credit: livescience.com
Unfortunately, their call to focus efforts on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees was from some of the most powerful nations at the UN climate talks: India, China and Saudi Arabia.
Care International’s Sven Harmeling has labelled this move “highly concerning”, especially given the human rights implications of a 2-degree target.
This concern turned to protest, as young people gathered at the UN with banners of tropical storms. They then asked negotiators to “add their name here” if they believed that a 2 degree world was safe, noting that they would use their names for the “future disasters of a 2 degree world”.
Recently, a group of global Human Rights experts, highlighted what they called the “human rights” implications of a 2 degree rise, calling it “the greatest human rights challenges of our generation”.
They argue in line with the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that people who are currently “marginalised are especially vulnerable to climate change”, even at only 2 degrees of warming.
They also pointed the finger of responsibility squarely at “the heads of governments and their climate negotiators” who they say “represent the very last generation that can prevent catastrophic environmental harm to a vast array of human rights”.
A U.N. report released earlier this year states that climate change accounts for 87 percent of disasters worldwide. This figure, it must be remembered, comes with only 0.8 degrees Celsius of global temperature rise that we are now experiencing.
However scientists are largely uncertain what the impacts of a doubling of current warming could be.
As Harjeet Singh from ActionAid International points out “In reality, the impacts of increasing temperature levels will not be linear, but will multiply what we face now several times over. What will happen at 2, 3 or 4 degrees Celsius of warming is unimaginable”.
Those countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change have been concerned about the reality of 2 degrees of warming since the UN climate talks began.
As the Philippines Climate Change Commissioner, Mary Ann Lucille Sering argued earlier this year, “How can we possibly subscribe to more than double current warming given what less than 1 degree Celsius has entailed?”
Seeing currently heads a group of countries within the UN climate talks known as the Climate Vulnerable Forum, who argue that the 2 degree target, reinforced by leaders of the G7 this week is “inadequate, posing serious threats for fundamental human rights, labor and migration and displacement”.
Seeing and other leaders of the Climate Vulnerable Forum commissioned a Human Rights inquiry into the 2 degree target earlier this year that has highlighted the severe impacts of 2 degrees for poor and marginalised groups around the world.
John Knox, who lead the inquiry as the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and the Environment, argued that “Even moving from one to two degrees of warming negatively affects the full enjoyment of a wide range of human rights.”
He further believes it will have a multiplying impact on Human Rights around the world, and make it very difficult for countries to “respect, protect and promote human rights.”
These reports, and the current state of UN climate negotiations around the 2 degree target have shone light once again on the importance of support that developing countries will need to face the ongoing impacts of global warming.
In fact, the government of Vanuatu has decided to sue the world’s leading fossil fuel companies for the impacts of climate change that they are already facing. Earlier this year, Cyclone Pam destroyed more than 90 per cent of housing infrastructure in the pacific nation’s capital city, Port Vila.
Baldwin Lonsdale, president of Vanuatu, called the Cyclone a “monster” which was directly linked to Climate Change. As such, his government has now decided to “bring a case that would investigate the human rights implications of climate change and hold the big carbon polluters accountable to appropriate international bodies.”
Within the UN climate negotiations, many fear that financial support for adaptation and the damages that cannot be adapted to will not meet the required targets. This is what led negotiators and civil society actors to stage a protest today in the UN climate talks demanding that negotiators not only recognise the importance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, but also reinvigorate negotiations to better support the inevitable damages that will result.
While a 1.5 degree world may not seem “realistic” to the likes of India, China and Saudi Arabia, all seeking to continue to exploit their vast fossil fuel resources, it is only a matter of time before the true “reality” of a warming world sets in.
It is interesting how time flies and, very soon, it shall be time for COP 21 in Paris, France; six months since COP 20 in Lima, Peru and two weeks since the Bonn meeting in Germany.
Dr Erimma Orie
In the interim the clock ticks, the climate keeps changing, the impact is not abating and our vulnerability keeps increasing.
With the international deliberations over Nigeria, like other party members, has returned home to our domestic constituents to re-examine the decisions reached at Lima.
No doubt, the decisions at Lima will have to be x-rayed in the context of our home-grown electoral interests, national discourses and domestic political institutions. In coordinating our national response, the desire has always been, as is also applicable to most other countries, to do so in a way that will not entail accepting more responsibility than other parties or groups. Thus, the trend in the negotiations has been, first to ensure the preservation of national/domestic interests.
It is in line with this that it becomes very necessary to commend the renewed efforts by Nigeria to become more active at the negotiations and activities leading to the COPs. Indeed, Nigeria is far more serious and coordinated now than some years back. It will be necessary to complement these efforts with our submission of our climate change action plan, or the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).
Perhaps in that same spirit one will suggest that it is also time to be more vocal – particularly against the developed countries who employ the services of lobbyists to achieve their aims – over continuous emission reduction at the expense of the more vulnerable developing countries like Nigeria. Particularly disturbing is the role of the fossil fuel lobbyists who are increasingly more determined each year to thwart the efforts at a new or post Kyoto agreement.
At COP 15, there was evidence that the fossil fuel lobbyist used their domestic influence to sway state negotiations in Copenhagen. About $20 million was spent by US Electric Utilities, $3.4 million by the coal mining industry and $35 million by the oil and gas industry just on political contributions to state representatives to ensure that the interest of the energy industry was protected at COP 15.
Similar situations played out at subsequent COPs. For instance at COP 19 in Warsaw, corporations with a direct conflict of interest in the treaty’s success got delegates and even sponsored talks. In fact, COP 19 is believed to be the first UN Climate talks to have corporate sponsorship with some of the biggest climate crooks as official “partners.”
COP 20 was also not different. At Lima, these lobbyists even had direct engagement with UN officials or body like the Lima Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) of the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations and the UNFCCC Secretariat.
Indeed the role of these fossil fuel lobbyists have made critiques to see UNFCCC as capitalist in nature and to call for an alternative to UNFCCC.
It is time for G77 and Nigeria in particular to take a stand so that Paris 2015 will not go the way of Copenhagen.
There is a sense of urgency here to which Nigeria, Africa, G77 and Nigerian NGOs must rise up to and ensure that the fossil fuel lobbyists are chased out of the COP or at least not allowed to have their way, especially at COP 21, if we are to make good success. This should be our stand.
By Dr Erimma Orie (School of Law, National Open University of Nigeria)
The Pan African Vision for the Environment (PAVE) is collaborating with the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley (UC-Berkeley) in the USA to investigate new strategies to explore how the human rights to water and sanitation can be successfully realised in Nigeria using Lagos as a case study. Graduate students of the Department involved in the initiative are scheduled to arrive Nigeria on Saturday, June 26 and depart July 9, 2015.
Access to water has posed a challenge in Lagos and other urban areas
Using the access criteria delineated by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation, the project will seek to create and pilot a mobile phone survey application for local community members, aid organisations and officials to collect and monitor data on water and sanitation conditions in urban Lagos. In addition, the researchers will carry out participatory mapping activities with community members to identify environmental barriers that impact access to safe water.
According to Anthony Akpan, President of PAVE, nearly 74% of the population in Lagos rely on water from informal sources as urban access to piped water has declined sharply since 1990. He pointed out that the use of groundwater sources has increased dramatically and the use of unimproved sources of water has increased, especially in informal settlements, some of which have the fastest rates of population growth.
He said: “While the Millennium Development Goals have contributed to a remarkable reduction in global disease burden and an increase in quality of life, universal access to safe water and adequate sanitation remains a challenge for many low- and medium-income countries. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly and United Nations Human Rights Council recognized access to water and sanitation as human rights in UN Resolution A/64/292.
“This resolution has become a seminal event in changing global expectations regarding water and sanitation. Countries are therefore responsible and legally accountable to utilize available resources to ensure that universal access to water and sanitation is provided for all. More importantly, the criteria for universal access established by the UN go beyond any previous expectations concerning infrastructure or quality.
“The requirements constituting the human rights to water and sanitation were delineated by the UN Special Rapporteur in the five following categories; 1) Availability of water and sanitation, 2) Physical accessibility to water and sanitation, 3) Quality and safety, 4) Affordability, 5) Acceptability, dignity and privacy.
The growing recognition of the human rights to water and sanitation has increased demand for disaggregated monitoring. Countries without a robust and efficient monitoring system are unable to gauge existing conditions in hard-to-reach communities. Thus, the unmet need for information and survey tools poses a threat to realizing and complying with the United Nations guidelines.
PAVE has been working to advance better access to water in Nigeria for the past 15 years.
