Delegados cruzan el puente de acceso al centro de convenciones de Durban donde se celebró la cumbre climática Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 12 dic (Tierramérica) – El mundo se encamina a un peligroso calentamiento planetario. Pero cuando la decimoséptima cumbre climática concluía en Sudáfrica este domingo 11, los gobiernos aceptaron discutir un nuevo tratado global para abatir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero.

Tras dos semanas de intensas y amargas discusiones, a las que se adicionaron otras 29 horas, los 193 países partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC) acordaron un complejo conjunto de documentos técnicos titulado Plataforma de Durban, por la oriental ciudad sudafricana donde se celebró la conferencia.

Los textos incluyen la continuidad del Protocolo de Kyoto, único tratado mundial obligatorio para reducir los gases invernadero, la estructura formal del Fondo Verde para el Clima y nuevos mecanismos de mercado, entre otros asuntos.

Pero el punto medular, logrado en el amanecer del domingo, fue el acuerdo de todos los gobiernos de que debe negociarse un nuevo tratado mundial para abatir las emisiones para 2015. Aunque esto pueda parecer la simple decisión de celebrar más reuniones, esta es la primera vez que todas las naciones aceptan ser gobernadas por un régimen específico en el marco de la CMNUCC.

De momento, las promesas voluntarias de recorte de emisiones formuladas en 2009 por los países industriales, China, Brasil, Sudáfrica, India y otros en el marco del Acuerdo de Copenhague, garantizan que la temperatura media del planeta se elevará 3,5 grados centígrados respecto de la era preindustrial, indica la ciencia climática.

Incluso algunos análisis afirman que la temperatura subiría más, entre cuatro y cinco grados, lo que pondría en peligro la supervivencia de la especie humana.

Pese a las declaraciones políticas de Estados Unidos, Canadá y la Unión Europea, lo cierto es que las naciones en desarrollo han prometido reducciones mayores que el mundo industrial que es responsable de 75 por ciento de todas las emisiones humanas causantes del calentamiento.

“Aún no hay nuevas promesas sobre la mesa, y lo aceptado en Durban en cuanto a elevar las ambiciones y los recortes es incierto en cuanto a su resultado”, dijo Bill Hare, director de Climate Analytics, un grupo asesor sin fines de lucro con sede en Alemania.

La presidenta de la 17 Conferencia de las Partes (COP 17) de la CMNUCC, la sudafricana Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, fue una de las rogaron a los gobiernos hacer a un lado sus intereses “por el bien superior del planeta y de sus pueblos”.

Países ricos como Estados Unidos, Canadá y Arabia Saudita bloquearon las conversaciones en muchos frentes, para frustración y amargura de los países más pequeños y desfavorecidos.

“La triste noticia es que los saboteadores conducidos por Estados Unidos se anotaron el éxito de incluir una cláusula de escape que podría impedir fácilmente que el próximo gran tratado climático sea legalmente vinculante”, dijo el director ejecutivo de Greenpeace Internacional, Kumi Naidoo.

Incluso si en 2015 se aprueba un estricto tratado legalmente vinculante, deberá ser ratificado por los gobiernos para entrar en vigor. El Protocolo de Kyoto se adoptó en 1997, pero no entró en vigor hasta 2005.

Esperar hasta 2020 para efectuar drásticas reducciones de la contaminación obligará a ir mucho más a fondo, con mayores costos, para mantener la esperanza de que la temperatura global no suba más de dos grados, dijo Hare a Tierramérica.

“La aspiración colectiva de reducción de emisiones debe elevarse muy pronto y de manera sustancial”, advirtió Alden Meyer, director de estrategia y política de la estadounidense Unión de Científicos Preocupados.

Varios estudios sostienen que las emisiones mundiales de gases invernadero deberían alcanzar su punto más alto entre 2015 y 2020 y luego declinar, si se busca una posibilidad razonable de controlar la temperatura a un costo alcanzable. Si el pico y la declinación se producen más tarde, los costos y los riesgos se dispararán.

“Los discursos contundentes y las cuidadas elecciones del lenguaje no pueden alterar las leyes de la física. La atmósfera responde solo a una cosa, las emisiones”, dijo Meyer.

Está claro que en las dos semanas pasadas los gobiernos escucharon a las corporaciones contaminantes y no a sus pueblos, sostuvo Naidoo en un comunicado.

La Plataforma de Durban incluye un segundo período de compromisos del Protocolo de Kyoto que debería comenzar en enero de 2013 para evitar una brecha tras el fin del primer plazo, en diciembre de 2012. Su duración y alcance serán discutidos en la COP 18 que se llevará a cabo en Qatar.

Los países en desarrollo insistieron en esta condición, pese a que el Protocolo solo obliga a pequeñas reducciones de los países industriales europeos, Canadá, Australia, Japón y unos pocos más.

Estados Unidos permanece fuera del Protocolo de Kyoto, y Canadá ignoró sus obligaciones y elevó las emisiones y ahora, junto con Japón y Rusia, afirma que no se sumará a un segundo período de compromisos.

La continuidad de Kyoto es “significativa”, dijo la secretaria ejecutiva de la CMNUCC, Christiana Figueres. Los países partes deben presentar sus ofertas de reducción para mayo de 2012.

Pero no hay una adopción formal del segundo período en el texto actual de los documentos, dijo Pablo Solón, exjefe de la delegación de Bolivia ante la Convención. “La decisión real se pospuso hasta la próxima COP”, y el Protocolo sigue “en terapia intensiva”, aseveró.

El único progreso del Fondo Verde para el Clima fue su diseño y administración. Se supone que debe distribuir unos 100.000 millones de dólares de asistencia a los países en desarrollo, a partir de 2020, para ayudarlos a reducir sus emisiones y adaptarse al cambio climático.

En Durban no hubo compromisos sobre el origen del dinero. Se acordó establecer un “plan de trabajo” para movilizar recursos de fuentes públicas y privadas. Estas últimas incluyen de manera explícita los mercados de carbono, pues los gobiernos del Norte industrial se escudaron en la crisis financiera y económica que les ata las manos.

La sociedad civil y algunos países en desarrollo destacaron que los gobiernos han entregado billones de dólares a bancos y entidades financieras y que el presupuesto militar mundial supera en más de 10 veces lo que necesita el Fondo Verde para el Clima.

Pese a que el mercado de carbono está en caída, el sector privado es considerado por Estados Unidos, la Unión Europea, Nueva Zelanda y Japón, entre otros, como socio clave para financiar la respuesta al cambio climático.

Los mercados de compra y venta de compensaciones de carbono son un sistema muy polémico y complejo en cuanto a mediciones y propiedad del carbono en el suelo o los bosques, entre otros aspectos. También subsiste el cuestionamiento ético de que los países ricos compensen su propia contaminación comprando bosques o tierras en naciones pobres.

“Mantengan las metas, dejen los mercados”, reclamó Oscar Reyes, de Amigos de la Tierra Gran Bretaña en los últimos días de la COP 17. “Nos preocupa que cuando el Fondo Verde tenga recursos se los prestará al sector privado para impulsar el mercado de carbono”, dijo Reyes a Tierramérica.

“Al mirar las pasadas conferencias, parece más efectivo que sus miembros salgan fuera de los recintos y planten árboles durante dos semanas. Probablemente lograrían más impacto”, dijo el joven de 14 años Felix Finkbeiner, de Alemania.

Finkbeiner lanzó una organización infantil llamada Planta para el Planeta que ahora trabaja en 70 países y ha cultivado casi cuatro millones de árboles en los últimos cuatro años. Su lema es “Basta de hablar, empieza a plantar”.

* Publicado por la red latinoamericana de diarios de Tierramérica. (FIN)

As the United Nations climate negotiations ended with the world’s nations still to agree on a new global treaty to reduce carbon emissions, others urge: "Stop Talking. Start Planting." Credit: Tinus de Jager/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 11 (IPS) – The world is increasingly committed to dangerous levels of global warming with yet another failure by nations of the world to agree to needed reductions in carbon emissions here in Durban. However, as the 17th Conference of Parties ended early Sunday morning, members did agree to talk about a new global treaty to reduce emissions.

After two weeks and an additional 29 hours of intense and even bitter negotiations, the 193 nations participating in the United Nations climate talks agreed to a complex and technical set of documents called the “Durban Platform.” These include the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, a formal structure for a Green Climate Fund, new market mechanisms, and more.

The biggest development reached at dawn Sunday is an agreement to negotiate a new global treaty to reduce emissions by 2015. While this may look like simply agreeing to more meetings, it is the first time all nations have agreed to be governed by a new global emission reduction treaty under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Currently the promised emission reductions by industrialised countries and those of China, Brazil, South Africa, India and others under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord guarantee a world that is at least 3.5 degrees Celsius warmer on average according to climate science. It will be double that over large parts of the world. Some analysis says this global average could be even higher rising to four or five degrees Celsius threatening our species with annihilation.

Despite the political posturing by the United States, Canada and even the European Union, the fact is that developing countries’ promised reductions are greater than the industrialised world that are responsible for 75 percent of the total human emissions in the atmosphere.

“There are still no new pledges on the table and the process agreed in Durban towards raising the ambition and increasing emission reductions is uncertain in its outcome,” said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

COP 17 President, South Africa’s Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and others pleaded with countries to put their self-interest aside “for the greater good of the planet and its people.” Rich countries like the U.S., Canada and Saudi Arabia blocked progress and numerous fronts leaving smaller nations bitter and frustrated.

“The grim news is that the blockers lead by the U.S. have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding,” said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.

Even if a strong legally binding treaty is agreed to in 2015, it will have to ratified by governments before going into force. It took several years to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that the U.S. backed and then failed to ratify following the election of George W Bush.

Waiting until 2020 to make major cuts means those cuts will have to be far deeper and far more costly to have any hope of keeping temperatures below two degrees Celsius, Hare previously told IPS.

“The world’s collective level of ambition on emissions reductions must be substantially increased, and soon,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Various analysis show that global emissions should peak between 2015 and 2020 to earn a reasonable chance of less than two degrees Celsius at doable cost. If the peak and decline comes later costs and risks of exceeding two degrees Celsius skyrocket.

“Powerful speeches and carefully worded decisions can’t amend the laws of physics. The atmosphere responds to one thing, and one thing only – emissions,” said Meyer.

It was clear that our governments these past two weeks listened to the carbon-intensive polluting corporations instead of listening to the people, Naidoo said in a statement.

The “Durban Platform” includes a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that will begin January 2013, avoiding a gap at the end of the first commitment period finishing next year. The length of the second commitment period is to be decided at COP 18 in Qatar.

Developing countries insisted on this condition because Kyoto is the only legally binding emissions reduction agreement. However, it only asked for small reductions from industrialised countries like those in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and a few others. The U.S. opted out and Canada ignored its obligations and increased emissions 24 percent. And now Canada, Japan and Russia have said they will take not take part in the second commitment period.

The continuation of Kyoto “is highly significant” said Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary. Participating countries are to submit their emission reduction offers by May 2012.

There is no formal adoption of a second commitment period based on the actual wording of the documents, said Pablo Solón, former lead negotiator for the Plurinational State of Bolivia. “The actual decision has merely been postponed to the next COP.” Kyoto remains on “life support” he said.

The only progress on the Green Climate Fund (GFC) was on its design and governance. The GFC is supposed to funnel 100 billion dollars in assistance annually starting in 2020 to help developing nations to reduce emissions and help them adapt to climate change. There were no commitments on where the money would come from. What was agreed is to set up a “work plan” to mobilise significant climate funds from both private and public sources.

Private sources explicitly include carbon markets as governments from the rich countries frequently cited the financial crisis has tied their purse strings. Civil society and some developing nations noted that governments have made trillions of dollars available for the bank and financial sector and that world’s military budget is more than 10 times what is needed for the GFC.

Even though the carbon market has crashed the private sector is considered by the U.S., EU, New Zealand, Japan and other countries to be a key partner in mobilising money for climate change. Creating private markets for the buying and selling carbon offsets remains highly controversial and very complex in terms measurement, ownership carbon in soil or forests and more. Then there the ethics of rich countries offsetting their own emissions by buying up forests or land in poor countries.

“Keep the targets lose the markets” Oscar Reyes of the Friends of the Earth UK urged negotiators in in the final days of COP 17. “We’re worried that when the GCF has money it will lend it to the private sector to drive carbon markets,” Reyes told IPS.

“Durban is a disaster” for a fair and functional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme said experts with Ecosystems Climate Alliance, a coalition of forest NGOs. REDD is by far the biggest potential carbon market.

“From looking at past conferences (climate COPs) it would be more effective if members of the conference would come outside and plant trees for the two weeks. They’d probably make a bigger impact,” said 14-year-old Felix Finkbeiner of Munich, Germany. Finkbeiner launched an organizaton of children called Plant for the Planet that is now working in 70 countries and have planted nearly four million trees in past four years.

Their motto: “Stop Talking. Start Planting.”

(END/2011)

La comunidad de Olonana Ole Pulei es una tribu de la etnia maasai de Kenia. Crédito: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Por Isaiah Esipisu*

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 9 dic (IPS)  Para la comunidad laibon, una tribu de la etnia maasai de Kenia, el bosque Loita, de 33.000 hectáreas, es un santuario.

“Nuestros dioses viven aquí. Juntamos hierbas de este lugar. Lo usamos para criar abejas. Por lo tanto forma parte de nuestro medio de vida”, dijo Olonana Ole Pulei sobre ese bosque ubicado en la occidental provincia keniata del Valle del Rift.

Ole Pulei estuvo en Durban, Sudáfrica, para representar a su comunidad en la 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17).

Según Nigel Crawhall, del Comité Coordinador de los Pueblos Indígenas de África (IPACC, por sus siglas en inglés), diferentes comunidades africanas poseen increíbles conocimientos indígenas que usan en la conservación de los bosques y la biodiversidad en general, y esto debería reconocerse en las negociaciones climáticas.

Crawhall puso como ejemplo a las comunidades de pigmeos bambuti y batwa, en el oriente de la República Democrática del Congo, que conservan los bosques utilizando métodos tradicionales. Ambos grupos dependen de la biodiversidad animal de los bosques ecuatoriales para sobrevivir.

“Por lo general saben identificar árboles que pueden talarse para crear una apertura única en la bóveda (forestal), lo que permite entrar la luz en los cerrados bosques del Congo. Luego la luz atrae a pájaros e insectos que ellos pueden cazar”, dijo Crawhall a IPS.

Esto ayuda a conservar la biodiversidad y, en particular, los bosques, porque este método solamente puede funcionar si la bóveda forestal está intacta.

En Kenia, la cultura maasai prohibe a los miembros de la comunidad talar árboles, ya sea para obtener leña o con cualquier otro fin. También está prohibido interferir con las raíces principales o eliminar toda la corteza de un árbol para extraer sustancias herbáceas.

Sus creencias indican que solo se pueden usar las ramas para hacer leña, y las raíces fibrosas como hierbas. Si la corteza del árbol tiene valor medicinal, solamente se puede aprovechar porciones pequeñas, tallando una “V” sobre ella. Luego ese corte se sella usando tierra húmeda.

Esta práctica se ha transmitido de generación en generación en la comunidad maasai. Entre los laibons, son los conocimientos indígenas los que han ayudado a conservar el bosque Loita.

Los miembros de la comunidad consideran que talar un árbol es atentar contra los dioses y contra su cultura.

Si bien todos los africanos son nativos de su continente, Crawhall señala que los grupos que conservan la definición de indígenas son aquellos que viven de la caza y la recolección, mientras otros practican la ganadería pastoril o la agricultura de secano.

Pese a que no hay una definición estándar sobre estas poblaciones, la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas (2007) reconoce que comunidades particulares, debido a circunstancias históricas y ambientales, se han encontrado fuera del sistema estatal y han quedado poco representadas en materia de gobernanza.

“Los bosquimanos de África austral, o la comunidad ogiek de Kenia, que viven en los bosques, son ejemplos típicos de grupos categorizados como indígenas”, dijo Crawhall.

África tiene más de 40 pueblos que sobreviven completamente gracias a la caza y la recolección, señaló.

IPACC trabaja estrechamente con 155 comunidades de 22 países africanos que se reconocen como originarias a causa de sus circunstancias históricas y ambientales.

En consecuencia, representantes de estas comunidades se han unido al resto del mundo en Durban para hacer oír sus voces, a fin de que sus aportes a la conservación forestal se reconozcan como parte de los esfuerzos de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático.

“Creemos que los conocimientos ecológicos tradicionales africanos son el cimiento de políticas nacionales de adaptación adecuadas y efectivas”, dijo Crawhall.

A través de la secretaría de IPACC, las 155 organizaciones comunitarias existentes en África redactaron un borrador con su posición para la plataforma de negociación. Reclamaron que los negociadores representen a todas las partes africanas: organizaciones indígenas, autoridades y sistemas de valores tradicionales.

Exigen la formación de una entidad regional legalmente vinculante en el marco de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para manejar asuntos de conservación que son difíciles de tratar en el ámbito nacional.

“Una de las brechas dominantes en la mayoría de los países miembro de IPACC es que no hay (derechos reconocidos sobre la) tenencia de la tierra para las comunidades que viven en los bosques o dependen de ellos”, dijo Crawhall.

Sin embargo, varios países liderados por Kenia han empezado a responder a las necesidades de sus comunidades locales incluyéndolas en sus estrategias de adaptación al cambio climático.

Kenia está en proceso de redactar un proyecto de ley de adaptación al cambio climático. Y las comunidades indígenas aportarán su perspectiva en ese texto porque, según la Constitución, se las debe consultar al elaborar iniciativas legislativas.

“Atravesamos todo el país buscando opiniones sobre este proyecto. (…) Nuestra visión es participar y liderar en el desarrollo y la implementación de políticas sensibles al cambio climático, así como proyectos y actividades dentro y fuera de nuestras fronteras”, dijo John Kioli, presidente del Grupo de Trabajo de Kenia sobre Cambio Climático, presente en Durban.

* Este artículo es parte de una serie apoyada por la Alianza Clima y Desarrollo (CDKN).

Durban leading the African response to climate change? Credit: IPS Africa

By Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9, 2011 (IPS) No one is happy late Friday at the very contentious U.N. climate talks that went into extra time on Saturday. As the lights flicker on a rainy night here, the partial power failure echoes the failure of the multilateral process, according to civil society and some countries.

“If countries agree to the text as it stands, they will be passing a death sentence on Africa,” said Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

And yet African countries and other vulnerable countries might go along because they will be bullied or bribed, said Bassey.

When Bolivia stood up to the United States at the Copenhagen climate meet in December 2009, Washington pulled its development aid the next year.

“Delegates must show that they care about the devastation across the continent and small island states …. or are they going to yield to arm twisting because a few dollars are being hoisted about,” Bassey said.

So far African countries are not blocking an agreement at the 17th United Nations climate change summit, he told IPS.

Thursday night, a select group of ministers and senior delegates from 28 countries met until four a.m. to work on the key components, but failed to reach a consensus. The following day, when all countries began to review the details, wide disagreements arose over many of the same issues.

“Countries won’t agree to a second period of the Kyoto Protocol until the next COP (conference of parties),” said Pablo Solón, former U.N. ambassador from the Plurinational State of Bolivia and former chief negotiator at the Cancun COP 16, the last meeting prior to Durban.

“Kyoto Protocol will lose its heart…it will become a zombie,” said Solon, who had seen the confidential details that weren’t released publicly until late Friday night.

Countries will “only take note” of the science-based need to increase their emission commitments well before 2020. In addition, the key phrase “legally binding agreement” that nearly every country wanted is absent, he said.

“The U.S. is the big winner here…This will lead us to a future with more than four degrees of warming,” Solon warned.

This COP is a” disastrous failure”, said Praful Bidwai, former IPS correspondent and a political columnist and social scientist from India who has just published a book on the politics of climate change. It would be far better for the talks to collapse than to cobble together a “greenwash deal” that pretends to be addressing the climate crisis, he added.

“The U.S. can’t be trusted at these talks. They will never agree to anything legally binding,” Bidwai told IPS.

The U.S. was the chief architect of the Kyoto Protocol during climate talks in the early 1990s, but never ratified the treaty even though it only called for emission reductions of five percent by 2012. At the same time, Canada supported and ratified Kyoto but did nothing to comply, so its emissions soared 24 to 28 percent during the intervening years.

Europe is little better, even though its emissions appear have gone down more than 15 percent. Much of that is due to the collapse of the Eastern European bloc during the 1990s, and the shift to importing its goods from elsewhere and thus avoiding emissions. Spain, Italy, France and others have had major increases, Bidwai said.

“It could all fall apart. Many low-income developing countries are very angry,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

These are the world’s poorest countries, like Mali and small Pacific islands.

At Durban, Canada and the U.S. were awarded the “Colossal Fossil” prize by civil society for doing the most to block progress on a new climate agreement. (END)

¿Durban conduce la respuesta africana al cambio climático? Crédito: IPS Africa

Por Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 9 dic (IPS) Nadie estaba feliz al anochecer de este viernes 9 en las peleadas negociaciones climáticas de la ONU, que entraron en alargue hasta este sábado. Mientras las luces parpadeaban en la noche lluviosa de la ciudad sudafricana de Durban, el fallo eléctrico recordaba el fracaso del proceso multilateral.

“Si los países aceptan el texto negociado tal como está, será como una sentencia de muerte para África”, profirió el presidente de Amigos de la Tierra Internacional, el nigeriano Nnimmo Bassey. Pero los africanos y otros países vulnerables podrían ceder porque serán presionados y extorsionados, agregó.

Cuando Bolivia se puso de pie y resistió las presiones de Estados Unidos en la 15 Conferencia de las Partes (COP 15) de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, celebrada en 2009 en Copenhague, Washington le retiró al año siguiente toda su ayuda al desarrollo.

“Los delegados deben demostrar que les preocupa la devastación de todo el continente (africano) y de los pequeños estados insulares… o se van a dejar torcer el brazo por unos pocos dólares”, cuestionó.

Hasta ahora, los países africanos no están bloqueando la posibilidad de llegar a un acuerdo, dijo Bassey a IPS.

El jueves por la noche, un grupo selecto de ministros y altos representantes de 28 países se reunieron hasta las cuatro de la madrugada de este viernes para trabajar en aspectos clave, pero sin llegar a un acuerdo total.

Este viernes, a medida que todos los países revisaban los detalles discutidos emergieron grandes diferencias respecto de muchas de las mismas cuestiones.

“Los países no van a acordar un segundo período de compromisos del Protocolo de Kyoto hasta la próxima COP, que se celebrará a fines de 2012 en Qatar, dijo a IPS el exembajador de Bolivia ante la ONU (Organización de las Naciones Unidas), Pablo Solón, quien encabezó la delegación de su país en la COP 16 de 2010 en Cancún, México.

El Protocolo de Kyoto, único tratado obligatorio para reducir la contaminación climática que expirará en 2012, “perderá su alma…, se convertirá en zombi”, dijo Solón, que había visto los puntos confidenciales discutidos por los delegados y que no fueron publicados hasta bien entrada la noche sudafricana.

Los gobiernos “solo tomarán nota” de la necesidad establecida por la ciencia de que se adopten compromisos mayores para abatir los gases que recalientan la atmósfera mucho antes de 2020. Además, la expresión “legalmente vinculante” que querían casi todos los países, está ausente, dijo Solón.

“Estados Unidos es el gran ganador… Esto nos llevará a un futuro con más de cuatro grados centígrados” de aumento de la temperatura mundial, añadió.

Esta 17 Conferencia de las Partes (COP 17) es un “desastroso fracaso”, dijo a IPS el indio Praful Bidwai, excorresponsal de esta agencia, columnista y sociólogo.

Sería mejor que las conversaciones colapsaran en lugar de redactar a las apuradas un “pacto de lavada de cara” con pretensiones de encarar la crisis, añadió Bidwai, que acaba de publicar un libro sobre la política del cambio climático.

“No se puede confiar en Estados Unidos en estas negociaciones. Nunca aceptará nada que sea legalmente vinculante”, sostuvo.

Washington fue uno de los principales arquitectos del Protocolo de Kyoto a inicios de la década de 1990, pero nunca lo ratificó pese a que el tratado solo exigía una reducción de emisiones de gases invernadero a volúmenes cinco por ciento inferiores a los de 1990 con plazo en 2012.

Canadá apoyo y ratificó el Protocolo, pero no hizo nada para honrarlo, y sus emisiones crecieron entre 24 y 28 por ciento.

La Unión Europea está apenas mejor, si bien parece que sus emisiones cayeron más de 15 por ciento. Gran parte de esa disminución obedece al colapso económico de Europa oriental en la década de 1990 y a una creciente importación de productos que le permitió evitar una parte de la contaminación doméstica.

España, Francia e Italia y otras grandes economías industriales registraron importantes aumentos de gases invernadero.

“Se podría desmoronar todo. Muchos países de bajos ingresos están furiosos”, dijo Alden Meyer, director de estrategia y política de la Unión de Científicos Preocupados de Estados Unidos en referencia a algunas de las naciones más pobres del mundo, como Mali y los pequeños estados insulares que desaparecerían por la elevación del nivel del mar.

Canadá y Estados Unidos se hicieron, una vez más, merecedores del Fósil Colosal, un premio que entrega en cada COP la sociedad civil a aquellos estados que más obstaculizan el camino para alcanzar un régimen climático internacional. (FIN)

Complejo de almacenaje de granos y oleaginosas en Mato Grosso. La agroindustria es clave en la promesa de Brasil de reducir sus emisiones de gases contaminantes. Crédito: Mario Osava/IPS

Por Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, dic (IPS) – Brasil pretende cumplir sus metas climáticas en el sector agrícola estimulando algunas técnicas ya conocidas, que reducen las emisiones de gas carbónico, pero que pueden incrementar el uso de agrotóxicos, según activistas.

La siembra directa, recuperación de pastizales, integración cultivos-ganadería-bosque, fijación biológica de nitrógeno, reforestación comercial y el aprovechamiento de residuos animales para producir biogás son las prácticas fomentadas por una línea de crédito blando, disponible desde agosto.

El Programa Agricultura de Bajo Carbono (ABC), adoptado por el gobierno, prevé eliminar de 142 a 173 millones de toneladas del gas carbónico que la agricultura liberaría hacia 2020.

Brasil asumió en 2009 en Copenhague, ante la 15 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, el compromiso voluntario de reducir entre 36,1 y 38,9 por ciento del dióxido de carbono que lanzaría a la atmósfera en 2020 si no adoptase iniciativas mitigadoras.

Eso significa evitar la emisión de entre 1.168 y 1.259 millones de toneladas de dióxido de carbono equivalente, dependiendo del crecimiento que logre de su economía.

El mayor aporte a esa meta será reducir la deforestación. La Política Nacional sobre Cambio Climático, fijada en ley de diciembre de 2009, obliga a reducir 80 por ciento los índices de deforestación amazónica, hasta 2020, en comparación con el promedio de 1996 a 2005.

La agricultura cumplirá su parte con avances en las seis buenas prácticas fomentadas por una línea de crédito de 3.150 millones de reales (1.750 millones de dólares), con “tres ventajas” en sus préstamos, aseguró Carlos Magno Brandão, director de Sistema de Producción y Sustentabilidad del Ministerio de Agricultura.

La tasa de interés de 5,5 por ciento al año, inferior a la inflación actual, un plazo máximo de 15 años y hasta ocho años de gracia son las condiciones ofrecidas para intensificar las medidas, especialmente la recuperación de 15 millones de pastizales degradados en 10 años, que responde por 60 por ciento de la meta agrícola, destacó Brandão a IPS.

La siembra directa ya se diseminó por Brasil en las últimas décadas, alcanzando a casi 25 millones de hectáreas, cerca de la mitad del área sembrada de granos en el país, estimó Brandão. La propuesta es ampliarla en ocho millones de hectáreas hasta 2020.

Pero esa práctica los grandes productores agrícolas aumentan el uso de agrotóxicos, empleados para desecar y tumbar los restos de la siembra anterior y también para combatir los hongos, favorecidos por el aumento de la temperatura y de la humedad del suelo cubierto de paja, señaló el ingeniero forestal Luiz Zarref.

Los agrotóxicos liberan gases de impacto mucho más intenso que el dióxido de carbono (CO2) en relación al clima, como el óxido nitroso (NO3), 300 veces más potente, observó Zarref, activista de la red internacional no gubernamental Via Campesina.

Además, el ABC fomentará el empleo de fertilizantes químicos compuestos de nitrógeno, también fuente de óxido nitroso y de otros gases como los derivados del petróleo, acotó a IPS.

El programa neutraliza parte de ese aumento, al incentivar la fijación biológica de nitrógeno, una tecnología desarrollada por la Empresa Brasileña de Investigación Agropecuaria (Embrapa) que ahorra gran volumen de ese fertilizante, con el uso de bacterias que lo captan del aire y lo fijan en las plantas, especialmente en la soja.

Pero aparte de la soja, esa tecnología todavía es solo “una promesa”, ya que afronta dificultades para extenderse a otras siembras, según Jean Marc von der Weid, fundador y dirigente de Asesoría y Servicios a Proyectos de Tecnología Alternativa (ASPTA), organización no gubernamental de apoyo a agricultura familiar y agroecología.

En su opinión, solo el crédito barato y con montos pequeños no permite superar la “complejidad” y las trabas a una expansión de la siembra directa, la recuperación de tierras degradadas y la integración cultivo-ganadería-bosques.

Los activistas critican la ausencia de la agroecología en el programa gubernamental. Pero se trata de “una opción compleja que depende de desconcentrar la tierra, diversificar la producción y evitar insumos químico-industriales”, ajena al espíritu del ABC pensado para “latifundios y monocultivos”, sentenció Zarref.

Brandão, por el contrario, considera que el programa se dirige a agricultores de pequeña y mediana escala, limitando al máximo de un millón de reales (550.000 dólares) cada préstamo, para “socializar” los recursos disponibles. “Los grandes (empresarios) tienen otras fuentes de crédito”, arguyó.

Mas allá del programa ABC, la crisis climática abre “nuevas oportunidades” para la agricultura y la investigación sectorial en Brasil, evaluó el jefe del Centro de Medio Ambiente de Embrapa, Celso Manzatto.

Se trata de desarrollar una “agricultura verde”, que comprende, por ejemplo, “fertilizantes inteligentes”, de liberación lenta y menos volátil, por lo tanto más eficientes y de pérdidas reducidas. También incluye el pago de servicios ambientales a agricultores que, además de producir alimentos, fibras y energía, conservan recursos naturales.

El aumento de la productividad es una forma de mitigar el recalentamiento global, y en la actividad agropecuaria hay un espacio enorme para ese avance, destacó Manzatto, quien hace 16 años que es investigador de Embrapa, el organismo estatal que tuvo un papel decisivo en la conversión de Brasil en potencia agrícola tropical.

Hay muchos lugares en Brasil donde la ganadería extensiva mantiene en promedio un animal cada dos hectáreas, ante lo cual es fácil duplicar la productividad, con resultados importantes en los factores climáticos, como es evitar la deforestación cuando se amplía la tenencia de vacunos, destacó.

El programa ABC exige un gran esfuerzo de transferencia de tecnología especialmente a los pequeños agricultores, anteriormente “marginado” de los avances logrados incluso por Embrapa, admitió.

La adaptación de la agricultura al cambio climático también abre grandes oportunidades a Brasil, por haber vencido el desafío “casi imposible” de desarrollar en las zonas tropicales una agricultura competitiva ante los grandes productores de clima templado, concluyó.

El compromiso brasileño de reducir sus emisiones de carbono se planteó para contribuir a un acuerdo mundial que permita evitar que la temperatura promedio del planeta aumente más de dos grados en este siglo. Fue una oferta voluntaria, de un país hasta ahora no obligado a ese esfuerzo por no pertenecer al mundo industrializado.

La reducción de la deforestación amazónica en los últimos años fortalece la imagen brasileña en esas negociaciones. En cambio, las críticas de ambientalistas proliferan ante los cambios en el Código Forestal que estudia el parlamento y que, en caso de ser aprobados, flexibilizará las reglas y penalizaciones a los terratenientes que destruyen bosques.

WWF climate scientist Regine Günther. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Kristin Palitza spoke to REGINE GÜNTHER, climate protection and energy policy chief at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), about the dangers climate change poses to security and livelihoods.

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) - Despite the high risk, it remains difficult to convince politicians to take immediate action to prevent further climate change and make available the necessary funds to do so. Scientists have warned repeatedly of the effects of climate change: If governments will not act fast, they will cause an irreversible catastrophe.

IPS spoke to Regine Günther, climate protection and energy policy chief at the World Wide Fund for Nature, about the dangers climate change poses to security and livelihoods.

Q: What are the consequences if the 17th United Nations climate change summit in Durban ends without firm results and targets?

A: There are several scenarios. If countries stick to the voluntary commitments to reduce carbon emissions they have made during the last two summits in Cancun and Copenhagen, we will see an increase in average temperatures by between three and four degrees Celsius. If they manage to start a process in Durban that will lead to higher emission reduction targets by 2020, we could succeed in not going above a two degree Celsius rise.

But at the moment, it doesn’t look good. If we continue like before and don’t even implement the voluntary pledges, we will reach a dangerous temperature rise of six or seven degree Celsius.

Q: What happens if average temperatures increase by more than two degrees Celsius?

A: An increase of two degrees Celsius already has negative effects. If we go beyond it, climate change will become dangerous. Glaciers will melt, up to three billion people will suffer from severe water shortages, mainly in the developing world, we might lose up to 30 percent of our biodiversity, droughts will lead to food insecurity, large regions will be permanently flooded, including small islands, and so forth. That’s why climate change is not only an environmental problem. It’s a threat to livelihoods and economies.

Q: Everyone is talking about the drastic effects of climate change in developing countries. What will be the effects on the global North?

A: Think back to the major heat wave in Europe in 2003. It was a very hot summer (with several people dying from heat strokes). If we don’t get climate change under control, the summer of 2003 will be regarded as a normal summer in 2040. By 2060 it will be regarded as a cool summer. The United States have also felt the impact of changing weather patterns this year, with an unusual number of hurricanes and storms. So yes, the industrialised world will also experience a lot of change and will have to adapt.

Q: Will masses of people in developing countries have to migrate, as some scientists predict?

A: That is very possible. And this will effect the global North as well. If droughts and hunger increase in the South, people will be unable to continue living there. If there are thousands and thousands of climate migrants, the question is of course who will offer them refuge. Many will look expectantly to the North.

Q: When will it be too late to act?

A: If you measure the dangers of climate change based on the two degree Celsius limit, we will have to reach the peak of global carbon emissions within this decade. Scientists say that a drastic reduction of CO2 emissions by 2020 would still be an option, but the very last one. I believe, by 2020 it will be too late. Nonetheless, we have to continue making every effort possible, because it makes a big difference if we live in a world that is two, five or six degrees hotter.

Q: Why do you believe emission reductions by 2020 will be too late?

A: The later global carbon emissions peak, the steeper the necessary downward trend of reductions needs to be. Achieving this will not only become very expensive but also extremely difficult. There will be a point in time, when not enough can be done to keep climate change under the two degree Celsius limit. Once we have reached that limit, which means that a certain amount of greenhouse gases sit in the atmosphere, the process of trying to lower temperatures will take decades, because the atmosphere reacts to changes only slowly.

Q: Why does it remain so difficult to convince politicians to act, despite the horror scenarios?

A: The biggest drivers for man-made climate change, the coal, oil and gas industries, are the biggest beneficiaries of our current industrialised economies. They work with major lobbies and large amounts of money against the trend to reduce their share of the economy.

It is also important to note that politicians are elected for four or five years, not until 2040. Within four years, the effects of climate change are not felt very heavily. The big changes lie in the future and happen slowly. As a result, there is a gap between today’s reality and the scientific knowledge of the effects of climate change if we don’t act.

Q: Do climate sceptics influence governments’ hesitant commitment?

A: In the U.S., climate sceptics have massive influence in the debate. In Europe, science has the top hand. That climate change is largely man-made is widely accepted. People have understood that something can be done about it and are more willing to take action. In other countries in the world that’s unfortunately not the case.

Q: How expensive will it become to fight climate change if governments continue postponing mitigation and adaptation measures?

A: According to British economist Nicholas Stern, taking no action will cost up to twenty times more than taking immediate action. Countries like Germany and U.S. have been able to mobilise billions of dollars last year to bail out their banks.

Now, they are trying to tell us that the international community is unable to mobilise 100 billion dollars within a decade to finance climate change adaptation in developing countries. If countries would make climate change as much a priority as the financial system, they would reduce other expenditures to drum up the needed funds. Exactly like they did during the economic crisis. (END)

Casi nadie cree posible un segundo periodo de compromiso del Protocolo de Kyoto. Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Por Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 9 dic (IPS) – La conferencia climática de la ONU llega a su fin, pero casi nadie cree que se logre un acuerdo para un segundo periodo de compromiso del Protocolo de Kyoto para la reducción de emisiones contaminantes.

La 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17) está previsto que termine este viernes 9 en Durban, Sudáfrica, pero es posible que el debate se extienda incluso hasta la mañana del sábado.

El martes 6 llegaron casi 150 ministros y jefes de Estado, lo que hizo que las negociaciones pasaran al plano político.

Para que se logre un tratado posterior a la expiración en 2012 del Protocolo de Kyoto, firmado en 1997 y en vigor desde 2005, economías emergentes como China, India, Corea del Sur, México y Sudáfrica tienen que estar de acuerdo. Lo mismo ocurre con Estados Unidos, que ni siquiera suscribió el primer periodo del tratado climático.

El mismo hizo que 37 naciones industrializadas se comprometieran a reducir 5,2 por ciento sus emisiones de carbono, tomando como punto de partida los valores de 1990.

Otros grandes contaminadores, como Canadá, Rusia y Japón, ya proclamaron su desinterés en un segundo periodo de compromiso.

A comienzos de esta semana, las negociaciones parecieron promisorias, cuando el principal negociador de China, Xie Zhenhua, anunció que su país estaba abierto a un acuerdo internacional vinculante. Pero su declaración pronto resultó ser un juego estratégico.

Zhenhua no dijo que China estuviera dispuesta a “ser parte de” ese acuerdo.

Muchos expertos en clima creen que Estados Unidos jugó un rol particularmente fuerte en el enlentecimiento de las negociaciones.

“El gobierno de (el presidente estadounidense Barack) Obama evidentemente vino a Durban no para ser constructivo sino para frenar el avance de otros países. Sus excusas para la inacción van y vienen como la marea. Una vez que se elimina una excusa, aparece otra”, se lamentó la portavoz del Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza, Caroline Behringer.

Incluso el secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon, echó por tierra las expectativas durante la apertura del segmento de alto nivel de la cumbre, el martes 6. Un acuerdo exhaustivo y legalmente vinculante “puede estar fuera del alcance”, dijo entonces.

Mientras los negociadores intentan llegar a una decisión, se tensa la atmósfera en los corredores del centro de conferencias de Durban, donde se realiza la cumbre.

Ministros y jefes de delegaciones se retiran a salas separadas para debatir a puertas cerradas los contenidos del documento de 131 páginas, base para todas las negociaciones.

Afuera, los delegados hablan en voz baja. Hasta que se anuncie el resultado final, todos retienen el aliento.

La posibilidad de concluir con una hoja de ruta para un acuerdo sobre la reducción de emisiones a partir de 2015 y con plazo en 2020, que incluya a los principales contaminadores y a las economías emergentes, también está en terreno resbaloso.

“Vemos una falta de voluntad política entre algunos grandes emisores (de gases de efecto invernadero) para llegar en Durban a un resultado justo y ambicioso, que salve las vidas y los medios de sustento de millones de personas pobres y vulnerables afectadas por el cambio climático”, dijo Tonya Rawe, de la organización humanitaria internacional CARE.

“Algunas partes ya hablan de postergar las decisiones sobre un acuerdo legalmente vinculante hasta 2020. Esto es un desastre, dado que puede crear una década entera sin ningún avance”, agregó.

Los delegados temen que solamente se alcance una declaración no vinculante, a través de la cual los países declaren vagamente su disposición a acordar objetivos obligatorios de reducción en algún momento.

Hasta ahora, solamente la Unión Europea (UE) y algunos otros países europeos, como Suiza, han expresado que, en las horas que quedan para que termine la cumbre, continuarán impulsando compromisos entre los principales emisores de carbono que actualmente no son parte del Protocolo de Kyoto.

“Todas las principales economías tienen que comprometerse, por supuesto respetando las responsabilidades comunes pero diferenciadas. Si no se comprometen con un acuerdo en el futuro cercano, asumen una responsabilidad insoportable”, advirtió Connie Hedegaard, comisaria europea de Acción por el Clima.

Las negociaciones no solamente giran en torno a una extensión de los periodos del Protocolo de Kyoto. Otro asunto importante es la adopción del Fondo Verde para el Clima, mediante el cual se canalizará el apoyo financiero destinado a esfuerzos de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático en los países pobres.

Pero los debates sobre este tema también han sido escabrosos, luego de que varios países –entre ellos Estados Unidos, Bolivia, Arabia Saudita y Venezuela- dijeron estar insatisfechos con el borrador del documento y querer realizarle enmiendas.

Además, la crisis económico-financiera del mundo industrializado, que se expande al resto del planeta, retrasó los avances en este sentido: los países ricos, que se supone financiarán parcialmente el Fondo Verde, dudan de asumir los compromisos presupuestarios.

Tal como están las cosas, es probable que el Fondo Verde se apruebe en Durban, pero sin planes tangibles para su financiación.

“No tenemos más tiempo que perder para salvar a los más amenazados por el cambio climático”, urgió Mizanur Rahman Bijoy, investigador de la Red sobre Cambio Climático en Bangladesh.

“Pero en vez de actuar, a los gobiernos principalmente les preocupan sus economías nacionales. De ese modo, no se tomará ninguna decisión importante y necesaria”, agregó. (FIN)

South African Bishop Geoff Davies (L) and Mardi Tindal, Moderator of the United Church of Canada

By Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) - African and international faith leaders urged governments attending the final day of climate change negotiations to do what is right and necessary to keep global temperature from rising no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“The two degrees Celsius target is unacceptable because temperatures in much of Africa will be far higher,” said South African Bishop Geoff Davies.

Oil and coal companies along with other major polluting corporations are engaged in “crimes against humanity and the planet” because they continue to pollute the atmosphere when they have ability to do otherwise, said David Le Page of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI).

More than 130 African faith leaders have signed a declaration offering specific recommendations based science, honesty, morality and equity. They called on delegates negotiating a new climate treaty here at the 17^th Conference of Parties to live up to the African spirit of “ubuntu” – a way of living focused on people’s allegiances and relations with each other.

The current economic system encourages “people to get as rich as they can and forget about anyone else,” said Davies. “It’s an immoral system.”

“Historic polluters like the United States have to reduce their emissions dramatically” and their position here is “shocking” and “reprehensible”, he said. The children and grandchildren of U.S. congressmen will ask what they were doing to be so selfish and irresponsible, Davies said.

The U.S is the most religious society in the world but their behaviour is “sinful” in their refusal to reduce emissions that causing so much suffering among people, he said.

“When lifestyles of the wealthy hurt the lives of the poor….and future generations it is wrong,” Mardi Tindal, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the country’s largest Protestant denomination.

“Climate change is a moral, ethical and spiritual issue. We need moral leadership not political leadership,” Tindal told IPS.

“South Africa has had courageous, moral leaders like Ghandi and Mandela. If our leadership shows the same moral courage the people will follow them.”

However, political leaders will have to lead by their deeds and personal examples, not words if they hope to bring people with them, she said.

Davies expressed deep disappointment regarding yesterday’s announcement that South Africa government will invest three billion rand to upgrade the Richards Bay Terminal export 81 million tonnes of coal annually by 2016.

Other countries here are expanding their oil production around the world and that is why climate talks will not bring the agreement we need, he said.

“You cannot underestimate the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry. We know they spend millions of dollars lobbying their governments. They are holding the world to ransom and causing the destruction of the environment.”

The good news is that the economically powerful countries like the U.S., Europe, Brazil, India and China could begin to turn this around in a matter of months with major programmes in renewables and energy efficiency. Money should flow to Africa, who is least responsible for climate change, to help them create low-carbon societies Davies said.

If this doesn’t happen “we all will suffer the consequences.” (END)

DURBAN, Afrique du Sud, 9 déc (IPS) – Les économies émergentes - la Chine, l’Afrique du Sud et le Brésil – ont manifesté leur ouverture aux objectifs légalement contraignants de réduction des émissions de carbone à partir de 2020 lors du sommet des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques à Durban.

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) – For the Laibon community, a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group, the 33,000-hectare Loita Forest in the country’s Rift Valley Province is more than just a forest. It is a shrine.

Olonana Ole Pulei’s community is a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

“It is our shrine. Our Gods live there. We gather herbs from the place. We use it for bee- keeping. It therefore forms part of our livelihood,” said Olonana Ole Pulei, who is in Durban, South Africa, to represent his community at the ongoing 17th Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

According to Nigel Crawhall, the Director of Secretariat for the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC), different African communities have incredible indigenous knowledge that they use in the conservation of forests and biodiversity in general, and this should be recognised during the negotiations in Durban.

“Different communities have different practices that they use in forestry conservation,” he said.

Crawhall gave an example of how the Bambuti and Batwa pygmy communities, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, conserved the forest using traditional methods. Both communities depend on the biodiversity of animal life in the equatorial forests in order to survive.

“Usually, they know how to identify particular trees that can be cut down in order to create a unique opening on the canopy, which attracts light in the closely-packed Congo forests. The light then attracts animals, birds and insects, thus giving them an opportunity to hunt,” Crawhall told IPS.

This helps conserve the biodiversity, as well as the forests because this method can only work if the forest canopy is intact.

In Kenya, the Maasai culture forbids any community member from cutting down a tree, either for firewood or any other purpose. People are also forbidden from interfering with the taproots or removing the entire bark of a tree for herbal extraction.

According to their cultural belief, one can only use tree branches for firewood, and fibrous roots for herbs. If the bark of a tree has medicinal value, then only small portions of it can be removed by creating a “V” in the bark. The wound is then sealed using wet soil.

“We believe that the soil helps in healing the wound on a tree. This is cultural, and we all believe that it is an abomination for one to injure a tree, and not help it heal,” said Ole Pulei.

It is a practice that has been passed down from generation to generation among Maasai community members. Among the Laibon community, it is this indigenous knowledge that has aided in the conservation of the Loita Forest.

“All logging activities observed on Maasai land, including the destruction of the Mau Forest, are done by foreigners because the Maasai culture does not allow such activities. This is the indigenous knowledge that helps in forest conservation,” Ole Pulei told IPS.

Such beliefs make the forests part of the community, where community members have feelings for the trees, and where cutting down a tree could amount to an offence against the Gods and their culture.

“We have several other communities all over the continent who co-exist with forests. They include the Tuareg community in Algeria, Yiaku community in Kenya’s Laikipia region, the Ogiek community also in Kenya, the Kung community in Botswana among others,” said Crawhall.

Though according to Crawhall, all Africans are indigenous although there are some groups who live by hunting and gathering, while other groups practice pastoralism, and others practice dry-land farming.

Despite the fact that there is no standard definition of indigenous people, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognises that particular communities, due to historical and environmental circumstances, have found themselves outside the state system and underrepresented in governance.

“The Bushmen of the Southern African region, or the Ogiek community in Kenya who live in forests are a typical example of groupings categorised as indigenous,” said Crawhall.

He points out that Africa has more than 40 groupings in different countries that survive entirely on hunting and gathering. However, IPACC works closely with 155 communities from 22 African countries who are recognised as indigenous because of their historical and environmental circumstances.

As a result, representatives from these communities have joined the rest of the world in Durban to have their voices heard, so that their contributions to forest conservation are recognised as part of the climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

“We believe that African traditional ecological knowledge is the foundation for appropriate and effective national adaptation policies,” said Crawhall.

Through the IPACC secretariat, the 155 community-based organisations in Africa have drafted their position for the Durban negotiation platform. They want the negotiators to come up with a position that is representative to African parties, indigenous African people’s organisations, traditional institutions, traditional authorities and value systems.

They are calling for the formation of a regional body that is legally binding under the United Nations, to handle issues on conservation that are difficult to deal with at national level.

“One of the prevailing gaps in most of the IPACC-member countries is that there is no land tenure for communities who live in forests, or depend on forests,” said Crawhall.

However, different countries have started responding to the needs of their local communities by including them in their national climate change adaptation strategies, with Kenya taking the lead.

The country is in the process of drafting the Climate Change Adaptation Bill. And the indigenous communities will have their say on the bill because according to the constitution, they must be consulted on draft legislation so that they can make contributions.

“We have traversed the entire country seeking views on this bill, where local communities have been able to give their contributions. Our vision is to participate and lead in the development and implementation of climate change sensitive policies, projects and activities within and outside our Kenyan borders,” said John Kioli, the chairman for the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, who is attending the Durban climate change negotiations.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (END)

Los países que participan de las negociaciones sobre el clima admitieron públicamente que sus actuales recortes de emisiones contaminantes no podrán limitar el recalentamiento planetario en menos de dos grados. Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Por Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 8 dic (IPS) – Los países que participan de las negociaciones sobre el clima admitieron públicamente que sus actuales recortes de emisiones contaminantes no podrán limitar el recalentamiento planetario en menos de dos grados.

No obstante, los delegados en la 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17), que se lleva a cabo hasta este viernes 9 en esta oriental ciudad sudafricana, propusieron encarar la llamada “brecha de emisiones” en la próxima COP 18, que se celebrará en Qatar en 2012.

Documentos negociados en Durban reconocen que la reducción necesaria de emisiones de gases invernadero, según estudios científicos, debe ser de 25 a 40 por ciento para 2020. Esos recortes y plazos son vitales para impedir que el planeta se recaliente más de dos grados, lo que significaría una catástrofe ambiental aun mayor. El borrador señala que esa debe ser la meta definida en la COP 18.

“Necesitamos un acuerdo sobre esa meta, fundamentada en la ciencia, el año próximo a más tardar”, afirmó el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Granada, Karl Hood, y representante de la Alianza de Pequeños Estados Insulares.

“Y queremos que esos objetivos sean legalmente implementados antes de 2017″, subrayó.

Hood dijo a IPS que esperar hasta 2020 para cerrar la brecha era “inaceptable” y significaría un “desastre para los pequeños estados insulares”, que ya sufren los impactos del cambio climático.

El mundo tiene apenas meses para poder recortar las emisiones de gases generados por la quema de combustibles fósiles de forma que el recalentamiento planetario no supere los dos grados.

Si esto se demora unos años, las reducciones extraordinarias necesarias para revertir el proceso podrían llevar a la bancarrota a la economía mundial y revertirían avances en el desarrollo en la mayoría de los países, alertaron expertos en Durban.

“Estamos aquí para alertarle a los políticos de que nos acercamos peligrosamente a un punto en el que no podremos alcanzar la meta de menos de dos grados” en el recalentamiento planetario, dijo el científico Bill Hare, director de Climate Analytics, grupo sin fines de lucro asesor en temas climáticos con sede en Alemania.

Los actuales compromisos de reducción de emisiones, acordados en la COP 15 de Copenhague, en 2009, permiten un recalentamiento de hasta 3,5 grados, dijo Hare.

Hoy, esas promesas siguen esencialmente incambiadas, y eso significa que las opciones del mundo para no superar un recalentamiento de dos grados se hacen cada vez más pequeñas, subrayó en conferencia de prensa en Durban.

“Para decirlo claramente, cuanto más esperamos, menos opciones tendremos, más nos costará y mayor será la amenaza para los más vulnerables”, señaló.

Las emisiones mundiales generadas por la quema de combustibles fósiles se incrementaron 49 por ciento desde 1990 y alcanzaron un récord de 48.000 millones de toneladas de dióxido de carbono (CO2) en 2010, con la probabilidad de que lleguen a 50.000 millones este año, indicó el científico.

Gracias al efecto moderador de los océanos, el planeta se ha recalentado solo 0,8 grados en promedio. Sin embargo, muchas partes de la Tierra registraron un aumento de las temperaturas mucho mayor.

La ciencia muestra que las emisiones globales deben caer a 44.000 millones de toneladas para 2020 y seguir disminuyendo dos por ciento cada año, una meta que la comunidad internacional, fuertemente dependiente de los combustibles fósiles, encontrará “sumamente difícil” de alcanzar, pero aun así es realizable, aseguró.

Si los países prefieren limitarse a cumplir los compromisos asumidos en Copenhague, las liberaciones de gases invernadero mundiales probablemente crecerán entre 9.000 millones y 11.000 millones de toneladas por encima de la meta de 44.000 millones, creando una “brecha de emisiones” considerable, alertó Niklas Höhne, director de Políticas de Energía y Climáticas de Ecofys, organización consultora sobre energía.

“Nuestros resultados van de acuerdo con el Informe sobre Brecha de Emisiones del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUD), divulgado al inicio de las conversaciones en Durban”, dijo a IPS.

Llama la atención que muchos de los temas de intenso debate en la COP 17 –biocombustibles, agricultura, créditos del carbono para la protección de bosques, captura y almacenamiento de dióxido de carbono– no son considerados importantes por los científicos para reducir las emisiones.

“Con los biocombustibles hay que estar muy seguros de que no deriven en un incremento de las emisiones”, dijo Höhne.

Varios nuevos estudios sobre biodiésel en base a aceite de palma y etanol de maíz indican que sus emisiones netas son más altas que las generadas por la quema de combustibles fósiles cuando se calcula todo su ciclo de vida.

Los biocombustibles no tienen probabilidades de constituir un método significativo para reducir las emisiones, coincidió Höhne, y la agricultura está en la misma categoría. Las prácticas de cultivo pueden ser alteradas para recortar las liberaciones de gases pero, según estudios de diversos escenarios, solo llenarían parte de la brecha.

La brecha de emisiones solo puede ser salvada con una combinación de una mejora de la eficiencia energética en todos los sectores con un significativo incremento del uso de fuentes renovables, incluyendo biomasa, pasando del uso del carbón al gas natural. El costo de este cambio es relativamente bajo: 38 dólares por tonelada de CO2 que no es liberada a la atmósfera.

Pero esperar hasta 2020 sería mucho más caro. Cada dólar que no se destine a la reducción de emisiones del sector energético requerirá una inversión adicional de 4,3 dólares luego de ese año, para compensar todas las liberaciones de gases contaminantes producidas hasta entonces.

Así lo señala el informe “Perspectiva Mundial de Energía 2011″, de la Agencia Internacional de Energía.

Esperar hasta 2020 “es un riesgo que no queremos tomar”, dijo Höhne. Pero los delegados en Durban parecen no comprenderlo. “No actúan como si lo comprendieran”, dijo, señalando que en 17 años de negociaciones no se ha llegado a un acuerdo para reducir sustancialmente las emisiones. (FIN)

Loopholes in the CDM must be sealed to allow participation of African countries. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) As the United Nations climate change negotiations comes to a close, environmental experts agree that carbon markets could provide the funds for climate change adaptation and mitigation projects, but only if existing loopholes are sealed to allow participation of African countries.

“When the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was introduced under the Kyoto Protocol, we all knew that it was a fantastic idea because it was, and still is, the only mechanism that enables developing countries to take action against global warming,” said Mithika Mwenda, a climate change expert and the Coordinator for the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance. The CDM allows emission reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one ton of CO2. These can be traded.

Currently, there are more than 3,600 registered CDM projects in 72 developing countries worldwide, with about three percent of them in Africa.

However, according to Mwenda, the architectural designs for implementing projects such as the CDM is far beyond the reach to most African organisations, institutions and communities because of the investment cost and the conditions attached.

“It has worked well in other countries like China, but less can be achieved from the African continent, which unfortunately is bearing the biggest burden of climate change,” he told IPS.

Mwenda cautions that there is a danger that the developed world will use carbon credit markets as an excuse to pollute more.

“In many cases under the markets’ architecture, the developed countries are allowed to pollute, and then buy credits from developing countries that sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Yet, what we need first is a commitment to reduce carbon from the atmosphere and to then use the markets as a supplement,” he said.

Lessons about carbon funding projects in Africa can be drawn from the Green Belt Movement, a non-governmental organisation implementing a CDM project in Kenya.

“It is clear that it requires massive investment to kick-start and sustain a CDM project,” Benjamin Kimani Kiuru, the senior project officer in charge of Climate Change and Carbon Projects at the Green Belt Movement, told IPS.

He said there were limiting conditions in the Kyoto Protocol that made it difficult for Africa to benefit from the CDM.

“One of the most limiting conditions as stipulated under the Kyoto Protocol is that the site where trees are to be planted must have been deforested before 1990. Yet given the fact that most forests in Africa have been intact until after the 1990s when people started destroying them, it makes it very difficult for investors to locate appropriate sites suitable for such projects,” said Kiuru.

His sentiments were echoed by David Lesolle, a climate change expert at the University of Botswana’s Department of Environmental Science.

“The way CDM was structured is that you need it only if you are ‘dirty’ (where countries have destroyed their carbon sinks). Yet Africa is not dirty,” he told IPS at the 17^th Conference of Parties.

But he quickly pointed out there is need to continue implementing the CDM because it still plays a role in climate change mitigation.

Also, Africa does not have experts to develop CDM project designs.

“We have to rely on experts from the developed world, which is an extremely expensive affair,” Kiuru said.

Lack of upfront funding from the World Bank for CDM projects was listed as another limiting factor.

So far, the Green Belt Movement has planted 1.5 million trees on 1,500 hectares in Kenya under the CDM, but the first disbursement of money from the World Bank is expected to come through only next year when the project is supposed to be assessed.

“It is important to note that two percent of money generated under the CDM projects worldwide is supposed to be used for adaptation. And today, the Climate Adaptation Fund has over 160 million dollars, which countries and organisations are supposed to apply for – but they haven’t,” said Lesolle.

However, Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change believes the CDM has been successful.

“CDM is a success story of the Kyoto Protocol. It has incentivised investment in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to sustainable development in some 72 countries.

“The object of the dialogue is to reflect on the CDM experience – both the good and the bad – and build on this important mechanism for the future,” Figueres told the media during launch of a high-level policy dialogue on the CDM. (END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) – The last hours of the 17th United Nations climate change summit in Durban have begun. Since the arrival of almost 150 ministers and heads of state on Tuesday, negotiations have moved to the political level. They are expected to debate the way forward until late Friday night, or even Saturday morning.

Almost nobody believes that a second, comprehensive commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is still possible. / Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Hopes for a breakthrough, or at least tangible results, are slim. Almost nobody believes that a second, comprehensive commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the only international legally binding instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which includes all major emitters, is still possible.

For this to happen, emerging economies like China, India, Korea, Mexico and South Africa would have to come on board, as well as the United States, a country which has not even ratified the first period of the protocol. Other major emitters, like Canada, Russia and Japan have already proclaimed their disinterest in a second commitment period.

The initial commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, under which 37 industrialised nations have committed to an average of five percent carbon emission reductions compared to emission levels in 1990, will expire at the end of 2012.

Earlier this week, negotiations briefly looked somewhat promising, when China’s head negotiator Xie Zhenhua announced his country was open to internationally, legally binding agreements. But his statement soon turned out to be part of a strategic game. But Zhenhua did not say that China was willing to “be part of” those binding agreements as well.

Many climate experts believe the U.S. has played a particularly strong role in slowing down the progress of the negotiations.

“The Obama administration has apparently come to Durban not to be constructive, but to hold other countries back. Their excuses for inaction ebb and flow like the tide. Once one excuse is removed, another emerges,” lamented World Wide Fund for Nature spokesperson Caroline Behringer.

Even U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon dampened expectations during the opening of the high-level segment of the summit on Tuesday. A comprehensive, legally binding agreement “could be out of reach”, he said.

While negotiators try to come to a decision, the atmosphere in the corridors of the Durban conference centre, where the summit is taking place, remains tense. Ministers and heads of delegations have retreated to conference rooms to further debate the contents of the 131-page document, the basis for all negotiations. Outside of the closed doors, delegates talk with lowered voices. Until the official announcement of the end-result, everyone is holding their cards close to their chests.

The possibility of concluding with a roadmap for an agreement to negotiate emission reductions from 2015 that will include major emitters and emerging economies, also stands on shaky ground. Under the agreement, all major carbon emitters would agree to internationally legally binding reductions by 2020 at the latest.

“What we are seeing is a lack of political will by some major emitters to reach an outcome in Durban that is fair and ambitious and that saves the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor and vulnerable people who are affected by climate change today,” says Tonya Rawe, senior policy advocate of global humanitarian organisation CARE.

“Some parties are already talking about delaying decisions on a legally binding agreement until 2020. This is a disaster as it can create an entire decade of zero progress,” he added.

Delegates fear that only a non-binding declaration will be reached, through which countries will vaguely declare their willingness to agree to binding reduction goals at some point in the future.

So far, only the European Union (EU) and some other European countries, like Switzerland, have vouched to continue pushing for commitments from major carbon emitters that are currently not part of the Kyoto agreement over the remaining hours of the summit.

“All major economies need to commit, of course respecting common but differentiated responsibilities. If they will not commit to an agreement in the foreseeable future, they take on an unbearable responsibility,” warned Connie Hedegaard, commissioner for climate action at the European Commission who spoke on behalf of the EU.

The negotiations do not only revolve around an extension of the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. Another important subject is the adoption of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through which financial support for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts will be channelled to developing countries. By 2020, 100 billion dollars should be mobilised annually from public and private funds.

But the discussions around the GCF, too, have been staggering, after several countries, including the U.S., Bolivia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela announced they were dissatisfied with the draft document and would like to re-open the text for amendments.

In addition, the global financial crisis has slowed down progress on the fund: rich countries, that are supposed to partially finance the GCF, are hesitant to make budgetary commitments. As it looks, the fund is likely to be signed off in Durban, if at all, but as an “empty shell”, without tangible plans on how it will be financed.

“We don’t have any more time to lose to safe those who are most threatened by climate change,” urged Mizanur Rahman Bijoy, a researcher with the Network on Climate Change in Bangladesh. “But instead of taking action, governments are mainly concerned about their national economies. That way, no important and necessary decisions will be made. (END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 (IPS) – Countries at the United Nations climate change negotiations have publicly acknowledged their current pledges to reduce carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius.

Reducing carbon emissions will not result in limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela

To bridge their shortfall, delegates at the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) climate talks proposed on Wednesday to address this so-called “emissions gap” at COP 18 in Qatar next year.

Documents under negotiation in Durban, South Africa acknowledge the science-based emissions reduction target of 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Those reductions and that timeline are what is needed to stay below two degrees Celsius. The draft text says this would be the target to be agreed on at COP 18.

“We need agreement on that science-based target next year at the latest,” said Karl Hood, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean island of Grenada and representing the Alliance of Small Island States.

“And we want those targets to legally come into force before 2017.”

Hood told IPS waiting to close the gap until after 2020 is “unacceptable” and a “disaster for small island states” who are already suffering the impacts of climate change.

The world has months to curb emissions from burning fossil fuels before two degrees Celsius of warming will be impossible to stay below. Delay a few years and the extraordinary emission cuts needed could bankrupt the world’s economy and reverse development gains in most countries, climate experts warned at the largely deadlocked United Nations climate change conference here.

“We’re here to warn policy makers that we are dangerously close to not being able to meet the less than two degrees Celsius target,” said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

The current pledges made by countries to cut emissions after the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 will result in global warming of 3.5 degrees Celsius, said Hare a climate scientist. Two years later, those pledges remain essentially unchanged and that means the world’s options to stay below two degrees Celsius are narrowing Hare said in press conference during the COP 17 negotiations that conclude Friday.

“To put it bluntly, the longer we wait, the less options we will have, the more it will cost …and the bigger threat to the world’s most vulnerable,” he said.

Global emissions of fossil fuels have increased 49 percent since 1990 and reached a record of about 48 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of CO2 in 2010 and likely 50 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 this year, he said. Thanks to the moderating affect of the oceans, the world has warmed only 0.8 degrees Celsius on average, however, many parts of the world are much warmer than that.

The science shows that global emissions need to fall to 44 Gt by 2020 and continue to decline by two percent per year, a rate that our fossil fuel-dependent world will find “extremely challenging” but still doable, he said.

If countries live up to their pledges made in Copenhagen global emissions are likely to rise nine to 11 Gt above the 44 Gt target creating an “emissions gap” that is quite considerable, said Niklas Höhne, Director Energy and Climate Policy of Ecofys, an energy consulting organisation.

“Our results are in agreement with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Bridging the Emissions Gap Report released at the opening of the Durban climate talks,” he told IPS.

The new UNEP report calculates a similar emission gap and outlines the way reductions can be made between now and 2020 to bridge that gap. Shockingly many of the items under intense debate at here at the COP 17 – biofuels, agriculture, carbon credits for forest protection, carbon capture and storage – are not considered important pathways to reduce emissions by scientists.

“With biofuels you have to be very sure they won’t result in a net increase in emissions,” said Höhne.

A number of new studies of palm oil biodiesel and maize ethanol show their net emissions are higher than fossil fuels when their entire lifecycle is calculated.

Biofuels are unlikely to be a significant method for reducing emissions, agreed Höhne. Agriculture is in the same category. Farming practices could be altered to reduce emissions but based on analysis using various reduction scenarios they would only be a small part of the “bridge”.

The emissions gap can only be bridged with a combination of improving energy efficiency in all sectors, significant increase in renewable energy including biomass power and shifting from coal to natural gas. The cost of making this shift is relatively low at 38 dollars a ton of CO2 avoided.

Wait until after 2020 and costs skyrocket. Every every dollar not invested today to reduce emissions from the power sector will require an additional investment of 4.3 dollars after 2020 to compensate for all the additional emissions between now and then said the International Energy Agency in its “World Energy Outlook 2011″ report.

Waiting till 2020 is “a risk we don’t want to take,” said Höhne. Delegates here do understand all this, he believes. “They don’t act as if they understand,” he said referring to the lack of progress on a deal to substantially reduce emissions despite 17 years of negotiations.

These scenarios do not include potential emissions from natural sources — feedbacks — like thawing permafrost as the Arctic region rapidly warms. Permafrost hold huge volumes of carbon and methane accumulated over the past 750,000 years.

The first estimate of the near-term volume of global warming gases from permafrost thaw may be 170 Gt of CO2 over the next three decades a team of 40 scientists reported last week. That means global warming could be “20 to 30 percent faster than from fossil fuel emissions alone,” said Edward Schuur of the University of Florida in a release.

“At the moment climate change is not high on the agenda of all heads of states,” said Höhne.

(END/2011)

Camino en la selva amazónica de Acre para transportar árboles caídos. Crédito: Mario Osava/IPS

Por Fabiana Frayssinet

RÍO DE JANEIRO, 7 dic (IPS) El Senado de Brasil aprobó un nuevo Código Forestal en medio de críticas ecologistas y elogios de sectores vinculados a la gran agricultura. El proyecto debe volver a la cámara baja y ser sancionado por la presidenta Dilma Rousseff para convertirse en ley.

Para los ambientalistas, el texto constituye un estímulo a la tala de la Amazonia, mientras el poderoso sector agropecuario ve en él un avance para garantizar la seguridad alimentaria de este país de 192 millones de habitantes.

La reforma, aprobada el martes 6 por 59 votos a favor y siete en contra, reglamenta la preservación de los bosques en relación a las actividades económicas que utilizan el suelo y los recursos naturales.

Se modifica así el Código Forestal vigente desde 1965, convirtiéndolo no en una “ley ambiental, sino en una ley más de uso agropecuario del suelo”, lamentó en un comunicado la organización Greenpeace.

El texto “tiene tres problemas: estimula la deforestación, amnistía delitos del pasado y disminuye la protección de las selvas todavía en pie”, resumió para IPS el coordinador de la campaña de Amazonia de Greenpeace Brasil, Márcio Astrini.

El punto más polémico es el que amnistía a los propietarios que hayan deforestado las  áreas de preservación permanente (APP) hasta 2008, si bien para evitar las multas el responsable tendrá que recuperar parte de lo talado y registrar su propiedad para futuras fiscalizaciones. En Brasil hay unos cinco millones de propiedades rurales.

Según al actual Código Forestal, las APP son aquellas que, “cubiertas o no por vegetación nativa, (tienen la) función de preservar los recursos hídricos, el paisaje, la estabilidad geológica, la biodiversidad, el flujo genético de fauna y flora, proteger el suelo y asegurar el bienestar de las poblaciones humanas”. Por ejemplo, las márgenes y nacientes de ríos y las cumbres y laderas de cerros.

De acuerdo con el Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza (WWF) la superficie de las APP sujetas a indulto suma 79 millones de hectáreas, equivalentes a los territorios combinados de Alemania, Austria e Italia.

“Será una tragedia para Brasil y para el mundo si ahora el país da la espalda a más de una década de conquista y vuelve al tiempo de las tinieblas de la deforestación catastrófica”, advirtió WWF en un comunicado.

El nuevo texto mantiene porcentajes de protección de la reserva legal, una zona “ubicada dentro de una propiedad o posesión rural, con excepción de la APP, necesaria para el uso sustentable de los recursos naturales”, según el código vigente.

En la Amazonia legal –delimitación política que incluye los estados parcial o totalmente cubiertos por ese bioma– la proporción de reserva legal en los predios agrarios en zonas selváticas es de 80 por ciento.

Si la propiedad se encuentra en zonas de sabana tropical de la Amazonia legal, la reserva es de 35 por ciento, y de 20 por ciento en el resto del país.

El proyecto, que debe volver a la cámara baja y después ser sancionado por Rousseff, exime de la reforestación a todos los predios de entre 20 y 400 hectáreas, según la región.

Si la propiedad se encuentra en estados amazónicos con más de 65 por ciento de su territorio ocupado por tierras indígenas o por unidades de conservación –parques naturales, áreas protegidas, etcétera– la superficie que debe preservar el productor disminuye de 80 a 50 por ciento.

“La legislación ambiental de Brasil era considerada como una de las más avanzadas. Esta alteración del Código Forestal destruye totalmente esta noción”, dijo a IPS la abogada ambientalista Rachel Biderman, consultora senior en Brasil del World Resources Institute.

“Este momento en que Brasil vive un gran crecimiento económico es acompañado por la banalización y debilitamiento de la legislación ambiental”, añadió.

El gobierno, que intentó mejorar algunos puntos aprobados previamente en la cámara baja, considera que el proyecto no es ideal pero es “el mejor posible”.

El senador Jorge Viana, del gobernante Partido de los Trabajadores y relator del proyecto, estimó que se cumple la misión de dar tranquilidad a los brasileños que necesitan tanto de alimento como de preservación ambiental.

“No conozco actividad como la agrícola que necesite más del ambiente para crear y producir. Así que no tiene sentido este enfrentamiento entre ruralistas y ambientalistas”, opinó.

Las autoridades creen que con controles más estrictos, ya en marcha, se conseguirán restaurar 24 millones de hectáreas deforestadas en reservas legales o APP.

Adriana Ramos, secretaria ejecutiva adjunta del Instituto Socioambiental, sostuvo que la ley “permite actividades agropecuarias en áreas críticas que en cambio tendrían que ser recuperadas”. Se trata de  un “mal proyecto” que “refuerza la cultura de la impunidad”, dijo a IPS.

Brasil es uno de los principales productores de alimentos, y es el primer exportador mundial de carne vacuna, café y jugo de naranjas. También es un gran productor de soja y maíz.

Para los representantes del agronegocio, como la senadora Katia Abreu del Partido Social Democrático, empresaria ganadera y presidenta de la Confederación Nacional de Agricultura y Pecuaria, se “pone fin a años de dictadura ambiental”.

El lunes 5, el Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales (INPE) reveló que la deforestación amazónica sigue cayendo. La registrada entre agosto de 2010  y julio de 2011 fue de 6.238 kilómetros cuadrados, 11 por ciento menor a la del período 2009-2010.

Es, además, la menor tala registrada desde que el INPE inició estos controles satelitales, en 1988. Por entonces, la deforestación era de 29.000 kilómetros cuadrados por año.

Por eso Abreu insistió en que es posible compatibilizar la producción de alimentos con la preservación de la selva.

Pero esto no convence a los ambientalistas.

“Brasil pierde la oportunidad” de construir “un código de desarrollo sostenible” basado en prácticas modernas “como el pago por servicios ambientales y promoción de sistemas agroforestales sostenibles, con apoyo y desarrollo de comunidades locales”, opinó Biderman.

Astrini apuntó que el país podría incumplir tratados ambientales internacionales y socavar los esfuerzos para frenar el cambio climático.

Las organizaciones que integran el Comité de la Floresta se movilizarán para exigir un veto de la presidenta Rousseff. “Le cobraremos el compromiso que hizo por escrito de que no aceptaría un texto que tuviese amnistía y promoviera más deforestación”, recordó Astrini.

Este país adoptó la meta de reducir sus emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero entre 36 y 39 por ciento para 2020, dependiendo del crecimiento del producto interno bruto, para lo cual necesita disminuir en 80 por ciento la deforestación amazónica respecto del período 1996-2005.

Brasil es el sexto mayor emisor de gases invernadero en el mundo. Y la principal fuente es la pérdida de su selva tropical, causada en gran medida por la expansión agropecuaria. (FIN)

Para Ban, se necesita una combinación de recursos públicos y privados para combatir el cambio climático. Kristin Palitza/IPS

Por Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 7 dic (IPS) – Fijar un precio a las emisiones de dióxido de carbono (CO2) en todo el mundo es la clave para nutrir el Fondo Verde para el Clima (FVC), que financiará proyectos de adaptación al recalentamiento planetario en los países del Sur.

A esta conclusión llegó el primer ministro de Noruega, Jens Stoltenberg, quien preside el grupo asesor de alto nivel de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) sobre financiamiento contra el cambio climático.

“Si puedes crear una amplia y más completa financiación del carbono, se podrán atraer más fondos privados”, explicó.

Se habla de “financiamiento del carbono” cuando se establece un precio a las emisiones de CO2 u otros gases invernadero, causantes del recalentamiento del planeta.

Según Stoltenberg, fijar un valor al dióxido de carbono tendría tres beneficios fundamentales:  estimularía a la industria a reducir las liberaciones de gases contaminantes, contribuirá al desarrollo de tecnologías limpias para recortar emisiones y generaría ingresos, que podrían ser utilizados con fines
gubernamentales pero también en acciones climáticas.

Ya varios países demostraron que los sistemas de comercio de carbono o los impuestos a las emisiones pueden ayudar a reducir la contaminación, a la vez que promueven el crecimiento económico, dijo Stoltenberg.

“La Unión Europea cuenta con un completo sistema de comercio de carbono y un régimen de emisiones. Australia acaba de crear un impuesto al carbono. China está fijando precios al carbono, y Sudáfrica también quiere desarrollar un gravamen”, indicó.

“Lo bueno de fijar un precio es que logra menos contaminación y más financiamiento”, añadió.

En los últimos 10 días de la 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17), que se desarrolla hasta este viernes 9 en la oriental ciudad sudafricana de Durban, el tema de cómo obtener recursos para el FVC fue el protagonista.

La crisis global y las medidas nacionales de austeridad han reducido la disposición de los países ricos a comprometerse a llenar los cofres del fondo con dineros públicos.

“Las crisis financiera y de deuda, especialmente en Europa y en Estados Unidos, se han agravado. Por tanto, debemos procurar tanto financiamiento público como de fuentes privadas”, subrayó Stoltenberg quien, como co-presidente del grupo asesor, presentó a la ONU un análisis proponiendo medidas para generar financiamiento a largo plazo.

“Nuestra primera conclusión es que constituye un reto, pero es viable movilizar 100.000 millones de dólares al año”, dijo.

Stoltenberg aludía un acuerdo alcanzado en la COP 16, celebrada en la sudoriental ciudad mexicana de Cancún el año pasado, según el cual la financiación por vía rápida de 10 millones de dólares anuales entre 2010 y 2013 debía ser incrementada a 100.000 millones anuales para 2020.

“No tiene ningún sentido tener un fondo si no cuentas con dinero para él”, señaló.

Por su parte, el secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon, coincidió en que las metas de financiamiento de corto y largo plazo solo podrían alcanzarse a través de una combinación de recursos públicos y privados. Esto no significa que los gobiernos pierdan control político sobre los mecanismos de
financiamiento del FVC, algo en lo que los países expresaban preocupación.

“Hay una variedad de posibles opciones de financiamiento, como los impuestos al carbono, al transporte, etcétera. Dependerá de cada país decidir qué regulaciones quiere implementar a nivel nacional”, indicó Ban.

Sin embargo, no exoneró a los gobiernos del Norte.

“Los países industrializados deben mostrar liderazgo inyectando suficiente capital de inmediato”, afirmó. “Es verdad que los gobiernos luchan con crisis, pero el cambio climático no es una opción, es un imperativo. Necesita un compromiso político unívoco y transparente”, subrayó.

No habrá avance en la lucha contra el cambio climático sin más financiamiento, dijo por su parte el primer ministro de Etiopía, Meles Zenawi.

“Necesitamos crear una estructura de precios que atraiga al sector privado para invertir en el financiamiento del clima. Fijar precios al carbono enviará una señal al sector privado indicando que la tecnología verde es redituable”, opinó Zenawi.

“La tecnología del futuro es verde. Hay una carrera. El que llega tarde quedará rezagado”, añadió.

No obstante, expertos económicos dudan que los países industrializados tengan un verdadero interés en proveer fondos para la adaptación en el Sur.

“No necesitamos más informes, necesitamos voluntad política”, dijo el economista Nicholas Stern, consejero del gobierno de Gran Bretaña.

Cuando más rápido actúen los políticos, más barato les costará, coincidió el presidente de México, Felipe Calderón, presionando para que el FVC comience a funcionar antes de que termine la reunión en Durban.

“Una economía baja en carbono no sale barato. Costará cientos de millones de dólares al año, dependiendo de cuán rápido actuemos. Lo más pronto actuemos, menos nos costará”, indicó.

Caio Koch-Weser, vicepresidente del Deutsche Bank, uno de los grupos bancarios más grandes del mundo, expresó su preocupación sobre el lento progreso para la creación del FVC. La industria esta dispuesta a invertir en una economía verde, aseguró.

“Dennos un precio para el carbono, dennos una política confiable y el sector privado hará la mayor parte del trabajo. Ya hemos visto una gran vibración de parte de la comunidad empresarial en interacción con los gobiernos”, dijo. “Por supuesto, todavía no a la escala y velocidad que necesitamos”.

Koch-Weser además señaló que la actual crisis económica mundial presentaba una oportunidad para que los gobiernos y negocios se transformaran y encontraran nuevos motores de crecimiento.

Para poder recolectar 100.000 millones de dólares al año para 2020, con el fin de financiar la adaptación al cambio climático, “necesitamos nuevas asociaciones público-privadas que proveen marcos transparentes, seguros y de larga vida”, dijo Koch-Weser. (FIN)

Dorah Marema, coordinator of Gender and Climate Change in Southern Africa. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

And those in rural areas, who depend on agriculture for survival, will be even worse off.

Dorah Marema, coordinator of Gender and Climate Change in Southern Africa, a network of gender civil society organisations, activists, and experts spoke to IPS about the importance of highlighting gender at the climate negations at the 17^th Conference of Parties (COP17) in Durban.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: Do you find that enough attention is being paid to gender issues at this year’s climate change negotiations?

A: Well there has definitely been a shift when we consider how gender issues have been considered in the previous COP’s. At this COP there is a lot of motioning of gender issues, there are over thirty side events focusing on women and climate change. Whether this indicates a substantive positive change we don’t know, so we are unable to evaluate whether they are making an impact.

Q: You advocate for climate justice as gender justice. Can you explain why you want to separate gender from the mainstream conversation and place it as a top priority on the climate change agenda?

A: When we talk about climate change and the issue of justice we talk about the global South being impacted the most. We then zoom in and say that Africa will be the worst affected in the South, simply because it is a poor continent.

…Although climate change will affect all countries, its impacts will be differently distributed among various regions, generations, age and income groups, occupations and genders. The poor, the majority of whom are women, will be disproportionately affected.

Over the past decade, the relationship between climate change and poverty in countries where people’s livelihoods depend on natural resources and environmental services has increasingly become a developmental issue.

This relationship between climate change and people’s livelihoods is seen to have strong linkages to poverty. To this nexus is an added strong gender component, which if ignored could lead to inappropriate policy measures and increased poverty, especially amongst the disadvantaged, poor population.

We say that women are poor in those nations and we say that women are the majority of the poor and we know that they are very reliant on natural resources.

They are also the food producers who are very reliant on agriculture. Those two things, including water (scarcity), mean that they are vulnerable because they are dependent on rain, and they are dependent on rain-fed agriculture.

Q: What sort of recourse are you looking for for women and how do you think they can be better empowered to adapt to climate change?

A: One example that I can give is that now there is the conversation around finance, the Green Climate Fund. What we are asking for is direct access to the funds.

(We want access) not just for countries, but also for organisations with projects that work with empowering women. They need that money so that they can implement adaptation and mitigation projects.

Also in terms of mitigation we need to consider the gender issues there. There are a lot of high-tech mitigation projects, which are not talking about empowering women.

So what we are doing is advocating for jobs that are decentralised so that women would be able to benefit by getting jobs. (END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 7 (IPS) – Carbon pricing will be the core mechanism to finance the Green Climate Fund and with it climate change adaptation projects in developing countries.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said there is a pool of possible financing options for the Green Climate Fund. Credit:Kristin Palitza/IPS

“If you can establish broader and more comprehensive carbon financing, we will attract more private funding,” explained Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who co-chairs the United Nations high-level advisory group on climate change financing.

Carbon finance puts a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

According to Stoltenberg, putting a price on carbon emissions would have three key benefits: it will encourage industry to reduce harmful emissions (to avoid being charged for them); it will contribute to the development of clean technologies to reduce emissions; and it will generate revenue, which can be used for government purposes but also to take climate action.

There are already a number of countries that have shown that carbon trading systems or taxes can help reducing emissions while promoting economic growth, said Stoltenberg: “The European Union has a comprehensive carbon trading system through an emission scheme. Australia just introduced a carbon tax. China is introducing carbon pricing, and South Africa also wants to develop a carbon tax.”

It was therefore plausible that carbon pricing could assist in providing urgently needed finance for the GCF as well.

“The beauty of carbon pricing is that you will get less pollution but more finance,” Stoltenberg added.

During the past 10 days of the 17th Conference of Parties, which currently takes place in Durban, South Africa, the question on how to generate funding for the GCF has taken centre stage. The global economic crisis and national austerity measures have reduced the willingness of rich countries to commit to filling the coffers of the fund with public monies.

“The financial and debt crisis, especially in Europe and the United States, have developed further. We therefore have to look for both public funding but also private sources,” stressed Stoltenberg who, as co-chair of the advisory group on climate change financing, recently submitted to the U.N. an analysis of how long-term financing should be generated.

“Our main conclusion is that it is challenging but feasible to mobilise 100 billion dollars annually,” he said, referring to an agreement from last year’s climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, that fast-track financing of 10 million dollars per year between 2010 and 2013 should be scaled up to 100 billion dollars annually by 2020.

“There is no sense in having a fund, if you don’t have money for it,” Stoltenberg said.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon agreed that short-term and long-term financing goals could only be reached through combination of public and private resources. This would not mean governments lose political control over the financing mechanism of the GCF, a point some countries said they were concerned about during the climate negotiations.

“There is a pool of possible financing options, such as carbon taxes, transport taxes, and so forth. It will be up to each country to decide which regulations it wants to adopt and implement nationally,” said Ban.

However, this did not release governments of rich nations off the hook.

“Industrial countries must show leadership by injecting sufficient capital immediately,” said Ban. “It’s true that governments struggle with austerity crisis, but climate change is not an option, it’s an imperative. Need unambiguous political commitment and transparency.”

There will be no forward movement in the fight against climate change without movement on climate finance, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi agreed.

“We need to create a price structure that will attract the private sector to invest in climate financing. Carbon pricing will send the signal to the private sector, that green technology will be profitable,” said Zenawi. “The technology of the future is green. There is a race. Who comes too late will be left behind.”

But right now, days of staggering negotiations about the operationalisation and financing of the GCF, have raised doubts among economic experts that governments of industrialised countries are truly willing to make available parts of the finance necessary to fund climate change adaptation in the global South.

“We don’t need any more reports, we need the political will,” said economist and British government advisor Lord Nicholas Stern.

The faster politicians acted, the cheaper it will cost them, agreed Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, trying to push for the GCF to be operationalised before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. “Low carbon economy doesn’t come cheap. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depending on how fast we act. The sooner we act, the less it will cost us,” he said.

Caio Koch-Weser, the vice chair of Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest banking groups worldwide, expressed his concern about the slow progress of establishing the GCF. Industry was ready to invest in the green economy, he said.

“Give us a carbon price, give us a reliable policy, and the private sector will do most of the job. We have already seen great vibrancy from the side of the business community in interaction with governments,” he said. “Of course it’s not yet of the scale and the speed we need.”

Koch-Weser further noted that the current global economic crisis also presented an opportunity for governments and businesses to transform, to find new drivers of growth.

To be able to raise 100 billion dollars annually by 2020 to finance climate change adaptation, “we need new private-pubic partnerships that provide transparent, long-lived and certain frameworks. We hope that the GCF will have a strong private sector facility and will be professionally run,” Koch-Weser said.

(END/2011)

SSESE ISLANDS, Uganda, Dec 7 (IPS) – From a distance, Bugala Island in Lake Victoria is a patchwork of green and brown. The pattern is a result of dense forest retreating in the wake of recently planted palm tree plantations.

Workers on Bugala Island work to clear the rainforest to make way for an expanding palm tree plantation. Palm oil production is one of Uganda's rising industries. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

The island, the largest of Uganda’s Ssese Islands, is at the center of one of the country’s newest economic endeavors – palm oil processing – and the formerly lush rainforest has fallen quickly, taking with it some critical jobs for the island’s poorest women.

Now, five years after the first phase of that process was completed, residents are starting to measure the impact of the initiative. Many speak glowingly of the jobs and activity the plantation has created. But for some of the island’s poorest residents – especially widows and the wives of often-traveling fishermen – continued deforestation has robbed them of their sole source of income.

Sarah Namwanje used to collect timber and charcoal from the forests that she could sell to people around the island. Now the 28-year-old mother of seven has no way to make money.

“No timber is seen,” she said. “We’re searching for firewood and trying to get money, but my job has stopped.”

Ahead of the palm oil project’s start, activists had clashed with the government over the potential environmental ramifications of the deforestation. But, with assurances from Bidco –the company behind Uganda’s palm oil industry – that the development would have little environmental impact and a stamp of approval from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the dazzle of a new industry and more jobs eventually won out.

What was never communicated to some of the poorest residents was how the project would affect both their livelihoods and their health. Especially the small groups of women who live on an island mostly populated by fishermen.

Some are widows, their husbands lost to AIDS or fishing accidents. Others are left alone for long stretches of time, their husbands chasing schools of fish around the archipelago of 84 islands. Until the men return with money from their catch, the women must scramble for resources.

The available jobs for these women are scarce and Mary Nampomwa, a local health worker, said it is difficult for many of them to get by without resorting to commercial sex work.

Before the palm plantations arrived, women who refused to turn to sex work had small-scale jobs, like gathering firewood. They had relatively free access to the timber in national forests or on privately held, underdeveloped plots, according to Richard Kimbowa, the programme manager for Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development (UCSD).

But many of those landowners, offered an opportunity to make good money off of unused land, sold out or cleared the forest themselves to create subsidiary palm plantations.

Now the island’s poor women are “being marginalised,” Kimbowa said, in the “craze for expanding this palm.”

Namwanje said the only thing she knows to do is encourage people to start planting more trees, so that she has renewed access to firewood and charcoal. But that is not going to happen anytime soon. Other women have taken up jobs drying small mukene fish on the sand next to Lake Victoria.

What is particularly galling to Edisa Katusime, a single mother of six children, is that local officials had for years been warning residents about cutting down trees. She was told that the forest was critical for preserving the island’s animal life and she had to be secretive about gathering timber.

But the government is “not preventing Bidco because it’s a company,” she said. “They are allowed to cut when the government is telling us the importance of the trees.”

Kimbowa predicts that the small-scale job loss might be only the first of the problems the palm plantations are going to create. Eventually, he said, there are going to be issues with food security as land previously used for raising crops turns to palm trees. And already some of the women are reporting that the absence of forest covering is creating health issues.

The loss of the forest means there is no longer a shield from the strong winds that sometimes blow across Bugala Island. The wind now “sounds as if it’s going to knock the house down,” Katusime said. The dust it carries sometimes leaves her children in coughing fits and has been particularly dangerous for asthmatic residents.

And despite assurances from Bidco that it is following the plan laid out by NEMA to minimise environmental impact, UCSD is still monitoring the situation, concerned about issues like soil erosion and seepage of agrochemicals into Lake Victoria. Despite the jobs that Bidco has brought, most of the people on Bugala still live and die by fishing. If fish stocks are reduced, there will suddenly be a lot more people on the island without a source of income.

For now, the warnings of environmental groups and the complaints of women like Katusime and Namwanje are muted by widespread enthusiasm for the island’s palm oil industry. And it’s still growing. According to Bidco, the palm oil plantation will eventually cover 40,000 hectares and be the largest plantation in Africa.

There is division even within the small group of women infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS that Katusime and Namwanje belong to. Unlike those two women, Annette Nnamukasa was able to harness enough money to take advantage of the palm oil boom. She bought about two acres of land and had it cleared. In its place she planted palm trees and now sells the crop to Bidco.

“It is almost the same,” she said. “The palm trees are almost forests.” (END)

Cartel del IPCC en Durban. Crédito: IPS Africa

Por Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 6 dic (IPS)  Suecia, Gran Bretaña y Alemania ocupan los primeros lugares en el Índice de Protección Climática 2012, cuyos resultados fueron publicados este martes en la conferencia de las Naciones Unidas que se realiza en esta oriental ciudad sudafricana.

Con todo, los tres primeros lugares de la clasificación quedaron vacíos porque ningún país hace lo suficiente para contener el cambio climático, de acuerdo a los criterios del Índice.

De acuerdo a criterios estandarizados, el Índice evalúa y compara la conducta de protección climática de 58 países que, juntos, son responsables de más de 90 por ciento de las emisiones mundiales de dióxido de carbono (CO2) vinculadas a la producción y consumo de energía.

Suecia, con baja cantidad de emisiones de CO2, 50.600 toneladas por año y una tendencia positiva de reducción, según los últimos datos de la Administración de Información de Energía de Estados Unidos (EIA), ocupa el cuarto lugar.

El Índice es realizado todos los años por las organizaciones Germanwatch y la Red de Acción Climática (CAN por sus siglas en inglés).

“Los resultados de este año muestran que, pese a que las emisiones globales siguen aumentando, ninguno de los grandes contaminantes hizo los verdaderos cambios que se necesitan”, indicó el director de CAN Europa, Wendel Trio. “Ninguno hizo lo suficiente”, añadió.

La política climática de Suecia no fue lo bastante ambiciosa y se quedó corta en cuanto al objetivo de que la temperatura media mundial no aumente más de dos grados centígrados, un umbral que podría dar paso a un cambio climático desastroso.

En tanto Gran Bretaña, en quinto lugar, no logró ajustar los topes de las emisiones de carbono. Mientras, los gases liberados por Alemania siguieron muy altos como para ubicarla mejor que el sexto lugar.

“La calificación promedio de las políticas nacionales e internacionales es baja”, señaló el investigador Jan Burck, de Germanwatch, uno de los autores del estudio.

“La mayoría de los especialistas no están ni de cerca satisfechos con los esfuerzos de sus gobiernos para no sobrepasar el límite de dos grados”, agregó.

Países como Turquía, en el lugar 58, Polonia, 56, y Croacia, 53, están en las peores posiciones debido a la evaluación de sus políticas climáticas.

Mientras ejerció la presidencia del Consejo de la Unión Europea, Polonia bloqueó la propuesta de reducir en 30 por ciento las emisiones contaminantes del bloque hasta 2020.

La tendencia de las emisiones y la desfavorable evaluación de sus políticas hicieron que Holanda (42) perdiera 12 lugares.

“Es de especial preocupación que no cese la tendencia global de quemar carbón” y petróleo de las arenas alquitranadas, alertó Burck. “Es la principal razón de que aumenten las emisiones respecto del producto interno bruto en muchos países”, añadió.

Suiza quedó en el noveno lugar, detrás de Brasil y Francia. El país sudamericano solía ser un ejemplo a seguir, pero perdió su posición por el aumento de sus emisiones de gases invernadero, incluso las liberadas por la deforestación.

Estados Unidos subió dos lugares y se ubica en el 52 debido a la disminución de emisiones, consecuencia de la crisis económica y financiera. Pero sigue en lo más bajo de la clasificación por la mala evaluación de sus políticas y la enorme cantidad de gases que arroja a la atmósfera.

India, una de las economías emergentes, bajó 13 lugares por su peor rendimiento, en especial en la tendencia de las emisiones.

“El Índice ofrece datos duros y tendencias en el contexto de unas negociaciones climáticas que suelen permanecer difusas. Esperamos que los países lo utilicen como motivación para elevar sus ambiciones en la lucha contra el cambio climático”, indicó Trio.

El desempeño de China está lleno de contradicciones, según los autores del estudio. Es el mayor emisor de dióxido de carbono, con 7,7 millones de toneladas al año, según la estadounidense EIA, y registra un drástico aumento de gases liberados a la atmósfera, pero su política nacional para reducirlos se intensifica con rapidez.

“China está construyendo la mitad de la capacidad mundial instalada de energías renovables al año”, indicó Burck, quien prevé que su ubicación en el Índice “mejore drásticamente” en cuanto esto empiece a reflejarse en la tendencia de las emisiones.

El gigante asiático, México, Corea del Sur y Sudáfrica tienen las evaluaciones más favorables en materia de políticas para contener el fenómeno climático.

Sudáfrica muestra un mejor desempeño año a año, pero está en el lugar 38 porque sus emisiones son todavía relativamente altas y mantiene su dependencia del carbón.

Australia tomó medidas alentadoras y trepó 10 lugares. Los especialistas reconocieron el nuevo impuesto al carbono como una iniciativa muy positiva. Pero sus emisiones muy altas hacen que permanezca entre los más contaminantes, en el puesto 48.

Pese a su mala ubicación, “Australia presenta una tendencia muy positiva”, señaló Trio. “Se unió al Protocolo de Kyoto solo en 2007, pero ahora adoptó nuevas e importantes políticas para reducir sus emisiones de dióxido de carbono”, añadió.

El tratado, firmado en 1997 y en vigor desde 2005, obliga a los países industriales que lo ratificaron a reducir sus emisiones para 2012 a volúmenes 5,2 por ciento inferiores a los de 1990.

La 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas contra el Cambio Climático está reunida en Durban desde el 28 de noviembre hasta este viernes 9 para discutir nuevos compromisos de reducción de gases contaminantes.

Los países peor ubicados en la tabla son Kazajstán, Arabia Saudita y Estonia. (FIN)

La falta de acceso al agua requiere una solución urgente en África austral. Crédito: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

Por Joshua Kyalimpa

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 6 dic (IPS) Cobran impulso los esfuerzos para que el agua se incluya como capítulo con peso propio en las negociaciones internacionales sobre el cambio climático que se desarrollan hasta este viernes 9 en Durban, Sudáfrica.

Según expertos en temas hídricos, se lograría así más énfasis en el desarrollo de políticas y en la atracción de recursos hacia este sector mediante programas de adaptación.

“Lo primero que cada uno de nosotros usa al levantarse es agua, y también cuando se va a la cama. De todos modos la damos por sentada”, dijo Chris Moseki, gerente de investigaciones en la sudafricana Comisión de Investigación del Agua, que integra la Asociación Mundial para el Agua.

La falta de agua es un problema grave en África austral, donde afecta a casi 100 millones de personas. La región se volverá más caliente y más seca en los próximos 50 y 100 años, lo que pondrá en riesgo el suministro hídrico de establecimientos agrícolas, industrias y hogares, además de amenazar los ecosistemas, indican modelos trazados por el sudafricano Consejo de Investigación Científica e Industrial.

A expertos y políticos les preocupa que la planificación sobre cambios en la disponibilidad de agua no esté recibiendo el destaque que merece.

El secretario ejecutivo del Consejo de Ministros Africanos sobre el Agua, Bai-Mass Taal, dijo que el grupo está trabajando para elevar el perfil de los temas hídricos en la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, cuya 17 Conferencia de las Partes (COP 17) tiene lugar en Durban.

“Les decimos a las partes: apreciamos lo que están haciendo en otros sectores, pero sin abordar los temas hídricos directamente todo eso habrá sido en vano”, dijo Taal.

De momento, los asuntos relativos al agua se discuten como parte de la planificación, adopción de prioridades e implementación de la adaptación a un clima cambiante.

Mientras se espera que cada vez más países padezcan escasez hídrica, la actual posición del agua en las conversaciones climáticas es inadecuada, dijo la secretaria ejecutiva de la Asociación Mundial para el Agua, Ania Grobicki.

“El producto interno bruto (PIB) de muchos países menos adelantados depende del agua. Más de 50 por ciento de los alimentos del mundo procederán de África en el futuro, y esto depende de la disponibilidad de agua”, señaló.

“Es por eso que este debate debería ir más allá”, agregó.

Más de 70 por ciento de la población de la Comunidad para el Desarrollo de África Austral depende directamente de la agricultura, principalmente de la que se obtiene solo con agua de lluvia.

Las proyecciones del Consejo de Investigación Científica e Industrial están entre las muchas que llaman la atención sobre el efecto que tendrán sobre la población africana los cambios pronosticados en los patrones de lluvias, los limitados recursos destinados a la adaptación y la falta de instituciones para regular el aprovechamiento de los ríos.

Desafíos similares se pronostican para el resto del mundo, pero la falta de riego y de infraestructura general en África es un factor que multiplica la necesidad de una intervención urgente.

La respuesta de África

Al cambiar los patrones de las precipitaciones, África enfrenta crisis importantes. En 2010, millones fueron víctimas de la hambruna en Níger y Mali a raíz de una sequía que afectó a los productores agropecuarios.

Este año, el Cuerno de África padece su peor sequía en 50 años, y millones sufren hambre por ese motivo.

Según el Programa Mundial de Alimentos (PMA) de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas, unos 12,3 millones de personas necesitan asistencia de emergencia en esa zona.

La comisionada de la Unión Africana para la Economía Rural y la Agricultura, Rhoda Peace, señaló que cuando los líderes del continente hablan sobre el cambio climático invariablemente se refieren a sequías e inundaciones, lo que muestra que el agua ya es una prioridad.

En 2008, los jefes de Estado africanos resolvieron colocar el agua y el saneamiento como prioridad continental.

“Los gobernantes acordaron asignar por lo menos 0,5 por ciento de su presupuesto nacional al agua”, dijo Peace.

“Que ese sea realmente el caso es otra historia, pero a algunos países les está yendo muy bien y pueden lograr sus objetivos”, agregó.

Brindar un acceso adecuado al agua en toda África costará miles de millones de dólares. Y para los muchos gobiernos africanos que no honran compromisos previos, no será posible recaudar las sumas necesarias sin apoyo.

El coordinador para África oriental de la Asociación Mundial para el Agua, Simon Thuo, dijo estar sorprendido de que incluso las propuestas del grupo de negociadores africanos mencionen el agua solo superficialmente.

Como otros expertos, Thuo cree que aun si las negociaciones climáticas abordan de manera específica la administración de este elemento esencial, no recibirá la atención ni el financiamiento necesarios.

DURBAN, Afrique du Sud, 6 déc (IPS) – A quelques jours des négociations des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques, de profondes divergences sur les questions clé de la conférence ont surgi. De sérieux doutes sur l’adoption du Fonds vert pour le climat sont apparus, tandis qu’une deuxième période du Protocole de Kyoto semble être de plus en plus improbable.

Un certain nombre de pays d’Amérique du sud, les Etats-Unis, l’Arabie Saoudite, l’Egypte, le Nigeria et le Venezuela ont exprimé des réserves par rapport à la signature du Fonds vert pour le climat (FVC), évoquant la nécessité de revoir certaines de ses clauses. L’Union européenne (UE), qui continue de soutenir le projet de document du fonds, a exhorté les pays à ne pas retarder ses progrès, avec pourtant peu de succès jusqu’ici.

“Il devrait être possible de s’entendre sur le projet d’instrument tel qu’il est. Il est un bon compromis. Dans sa forme actuelle, il attirerait des fonds importants”, a déclaré le négociateur de l’UE, Tomasz Chruszczow. “Ce serait contreproductif d’entreprendre de nouvelles discussions techniques sur cet instrument”.

Des organisations non gouvernementales et des militants du climat conviennent que la réouverture du texte de négociation compromettrait sérieusement les chances de finaliser le FVC avant la fin du sommet de la 17ème Conférence des parties (COP 17) en cours à Durban, en Afrique du Sud.

“Cela signifierait qu’il n’existe aucun instrument dans lequel l’argent pourrait entrer. Nous comprenons qu’il y ait des inquiétudes provenant de certaines parties, mais ce texte de négociation représentait un compromis politique bien équilibré et a mis des mois avant d’être finalisé”, a déploré Tasneem Essop, le directeur de la stratégie internationale sur le climat du Fonds mondial pour la nature.

Plus de 190 pays participant aux négociations climatiques mondiales à Durban étaient censés signer le FVC, qui est destiné à aider les pays en développement avec 100 milliards de dollars par an, d’ici à 2020, à s’adapter aux effets des changements climatiques.

Dans un effort pour réaliser un consensus, la présidente de la COP 17, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, a indiqué qu’elle contacterait les différents pays à travers “des discussions transparentes et informelles” dans les jours à venir. Il n’existe, cependant, aucun processus ou délai définitif pour ces négociations. Les partisans du FVC attendent maintenant avec impatience la présentation de son rapport.

Certains experts suggèrent qu’au lieu de rouvrir les négociations, il devrait exister un texte supplémentaire pour le projet de document qui résout certaines des préoccupations les plus pressantes, tandis que d’autres questions pourraient être discutées par le conseil du FVC, une fois élu.

Economie d’adaptation

Un financement immédiat pour l’adaptation et l’atténuation permettra non seulement d’aider les pays à faire face aux changements climatiques, mais aura aussi un bon sens économique. La Banque mondiale et la ‘United States Geological Survey’ (Enquête géologique américaine) ont estimé que des pertes économiques à travers le monde dues aux catastrophes naturelles dans les années 1990 auraient pu être réduites de 280 milliards de dollars, si seulement 40 milliards de dollars avaient été investis dans la prévention des catastrophes.

Mais deux ans après s’être engagés à mobiliser 100 milliards de dollars par an pour l’atténuation et l’adaptation aux changements climatiques, lors de la COP 15 à Copenhague, les pays développés n’ont pas encore indiqué la source de provenance de ces fonds publics promis. Ils se sont plutôt concentrés sur les moyens de mobiliser le secteur privé.

“Si ce fonds vient avec un coffre vide, il n’aura pas de sens”, a averti Ilana Solomon, conseillère politique à ‘ActionAid’ aux Etats-Unis. “Nous savons que les temps sont durs pour une aide financière et que les budgets sont serrés”, a-t-elle déclaré, en référence à la crise dans la zone euro, “mais la vérité est que les pays riches peuvent réunir cet argent”.

Les difficultés à obtenir un financement pour le FVC sont alarmantes, car même si les pays finalisent en fin de compte tout le budget, il ne sera pas suffisant. Des estimations récentes effectuées par la Commission européenne et la Banque mondiale montrent qu’au moins le double du montant qui sera réuni pour le fonds est nécessaire pour l’adaptation et l’atténuation dans les pays en développement. D’autres experts soulignent que le monde aura besoin de 5,7 trillions de dollars d’ici à 2035 pour faire face aux effets des changements climatiques.

Des experts des changements climatiques indiquent également qu’une action est désormais nécessaire, parce qu’il faudra sept fois plus de temps pour inverser les effets négatifs des changements climatiques, que d’investir dans la prévention.

“Il semble que nous parlons beaucoup d’argent, mais le coût de l’inaction est bien plus élevé que celui de l’action”, a affirmé Kelly Dent, conseillère politique sur les changements climatiques à ‘Oxfam International – Australie’. “Nous avons besoin d’argent pour approvisionner le fonds. Et nous voulons qu’il soit disponible et rapidement opérationnel”.

Jusqu’à présent, les pays n’ont pas pu s’entendre sur un mécanisme unique pour attirer des fonds publics.

Kyoto – une COP morte?

Au milieu des discussions houleuses sur le fonds pour le climat, les chances que les pays acceptent une deuxième période d’engagement du Protocole de Kyoto, qui expirera à la fin de 2012, sont devenues aussi faibles. En dehors de l’UE, aucune autre nation industrialisée ne soutient actuellement l’idée d’une extension.

Les Etats-Unis, la Russie et le Japon ont clairement affiché leur désintérêt, tandis que le Canada a provoqué un tollé général il y a une semaine lorsque tout le monde a su qu’il veut abandonner le protocole, probablement pour éviter de payer des amendes pour n’avoir pas atteint ses objectifs de réduction des émissions.

“Nous ne pouvons pas laisser la distraction de la manœuvre du Canada détourner notre attention sur de très réels progrès qui peuvent être faits avec l’UE et d’autres, comme un pas crucial e avant pour un régime juridiquement contraignant et des réductions des émissions”, a exhorté Dent.

Même l’UE est en train de changer légèrement de tactique. Elle veut désormais que les plus grands émetteurs du monde s’accordent d’ci à 2015 sur un pacte contraignant à mettre en vigueur d’ici à 2020 au plus tard et offre en échange une extension de ses objectifs de réduction du carbone conformément au Protocole de Kyoto. L’UE a déclaré qu’elle espère sortir les négociations de l’impasse et trouver un “terrain d’entente” avec la Chine et d’autres économies émergentes.

Mais des experts des changements climatiques croient qu’attendre jusqu’en 2020 pour définir des objectifs fermes de réduction des émissions fera qu’il sera trop tard. “Nous avons besoin d’ambition pour augmenter les objectifs de réduction des émissions à partir de 2012. 2020 est trop tard”, a souligné Dent. (FIN/IPS/11)

La secretaria ejecutiva de la CMNUCC, Christiana Figueres, en la conferencia de Durban. Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Por Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 5 dic (IPS) Cuando la cumbre de las Naciones Unidas sobre el clima entra en su recta final en la ciudad sudafricana de Durban, Estados Unidos se yergue como el mayor obstáculo para lograr un nuevo régimen climático internacional.

“La postura estadounidense nos puede llevar a un calentamiento de tres o cuatro grados centígrados, que será devastador para los pobres del mundo”, dijo la activista Celine Charveriat, de Oxfam International. “Propone una década muerta sin nuevas metas para reducir las emisiones hasta después de 2020″, dijo.

En la 15 Conferencia de las Partes (COP 15) de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC), celebrada en 2009 en Copenhague, la delegación estadounidense había prometido disminuir las emisiones de ese país de gases de efecto invernadero en 17 por ciento entre 2005 y 2020.

Esto está muy lejos de lo que se reconoce como necesario para controlar el cambio climático: un recorte de emisiones de entre 25 y 40 por ciento respecto de los volúmenes emitidos en 1990 por Estados Unidos y todas las demás naciones ricas.

La ciencia ha reiterado que la contaminación climática –los gases invernadero que liberan actividades humanas como la deforestación, la agricultura, el transporte y la industria– debe alcanzar su punto más alto a mediados de esta década y luego empezar a declinar año tras año.

Pero el negociador estadounidense Jonathan Pershing insiste en que el compromiso de Copenhague es suficiente hasta 2020.

“Así no evitaremos un cambio climático desastroso”, dijo el director general del Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza (WWF), Jim Leape.

Con el actual aumento de la temperatura media mundial de apenas 0,8 grados respecto de la era preindustrial, el propio Estados Unidos sufrió este año pérdidas sin precedentes por las severas condiciones climáticas en su territorio, apuntó Leape.

Si Washington “no modera esta postura, debería apartarse” de las negociaciones, agregó.

Para el director ejecutivo de Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, “los delegados deben oír a sus pueblos y no a algunos intereses corporativos”. El gobierno de Barack Obama está traicionando al pueblo estadounidense y a los municipios y a las empresas que están adoptando acciones serias para reducir sus emisiones, añadió.

Un delegado del bloque de Países Menos Adelantados, el gambiano Pa Ousman Jarju, también reclamó que Washington diera un paso al costado y dejara de bloquear las conversaciones de la COP 17, que comenzaron el 28 de noviembre e ingresarán a partir de este martes 6 en sus segmentos de alto nivel para concluir el viernes 9.

Jarju reiteró el compromiso del mundo en desarrollo con un segundo período del Protocolo de Kyoto, que expirará en 2012 y que establece obligaciones para todas las naciones ricas –excepto Estados Unidos– de abatir sus emisiones de gases invernadero a volúmenes 5,2 por ciento inferiores a los de 1990.

Las emisiones de Canadá son casi 30 por ciento mayores que las de 1990, y el gobierno de este país ya anunció que no se sumaría a una segunda fase de obligaciones. Japón y Rusia tampoco están dispuestos. Y así el Protocolo de Kyoto regularía solamente un cuarto de las actuales emisiones globales.

Había rumores de que el Protocolo adoptado en la ciudad japonesa de Kyoto en 1997 encontraría la muerte en Durban, pero la secretaria ejecutiva de la CMNUCC, Christiana Figueres, lo desmintió.

Naidoo admitió que Protocolo no ha muerto, pero estará “en terapia intensiva en los próximos dos años” de nuevas negociaciones.

Para Jarju, más allá de Kyoto, es crucial el carril paralelo de discusiones para regular y reducir el otro 75 por ciento de la contaminación climática.

Es en este carril en el que Washington se muestra renuente a ir más allá de lo que prometió en Copenhague, porque China, el principal emisor mundial de dióxido de carbono, se negaba hasta ahora a asumir reducciones obligatorias.

Pero, por primera vez, China ha dicho que aceptaría adoptar ese compromiso a partir de 2020, un cambio que Figueres considera “muy positivo” y que forma parte de los avances que ella espera se acrecienten con el arribo de los ministros a Durban a partir de este martes.

Además de China, otras dos grandes potencias emergentes, Brasil y Sudáfrica, han mostrado su voluntad de sumarse a reducciones obligatorias desde 2020.

India es el único país del grupo Basic –que conforma con Brasil, Sudáfrica y China– que sigue negándose.

La otra gran cuestión es la puesta en marcha del Fondo Verde para el Clima, que debe ofrecer unos 100.000 millones de dólares por año para financiar la adaptación de los países en desarrollo al cambio climático, pero está empantanado porque no hay acuerdo sobre su estructura y funcionamiento, aunque lo más complicado es decidir de dónde vendrá el dinero.

En cambio, hay modestos avances en las conversaciones para abatir la deforestación, una gran fuente de gases invernadero.

La negociación del programa de Reducción de Emisiones Provocadas por Deforestación y Degradación de los Bosques  (REDD+) se ha centrado en asuntos complejos como la verificación de las reducciones, mientras la cuestión de cómo financiar estos planes quedó pospuesta hasta la COP 18, que se llevará a cabo el año próximo en Qatar. (FIN)

Access to water is an urgent issue here in the Southern Africa region. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Joshua Kyalimpa

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 (IPS) – Efforts to establish water as an agenda item in its own right in climate change negotiations are gaining momentum in Durban, South Africa. Water experts say doing this will lead to a greater focus on developing policy, and attract more resources into the water sector through adaptation programmes.

“For every one of us, the first thing you use when you wake up in the morning is water, and when we are going to bed, it is water. Yet, it’s taken for granted,” says Chris Moseki, research manager at the Water Research Commission (WRC) in South Africa. WRC is a member of the Global Water Partnership (GWP) – a global alliance of organisations working on water issues.

Access to water is an urgent issue here in the Southern Africa region, where nearly 100 million people lack adequate access to water. Modelling by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa shows the region will become hotter and drier over the next 50 to 100 years, putting farms, industry, domestic water supply and natural ecosystems at risk.

International water experts and policy makers are concerned that planning for changes to water availability is not getting the prominence it deserves. Bai-Mass Taal, the Executive Secretary of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), says they are working to raise the profile of water within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“We are saying to the parties, look: we appreciate what you are doing in other sectors, but without addressing water directly, all of that will be in vain,” says Taal.

At this point, water issues are being discussed by treaty negotiators as part of wider planning, prioritising and implementing of adaptation to a changing climate.

Dr. Ania Grobicki, GWP Executive Secretary, says that with growing numbers of countries expected to experience water scarcity, the current position of water in climate talks is inadequate.

“The GDP of many countries in the least developed countries is dependent on water. More than 50 percent of food for the world will come from Africa in the future, and this is dependent on availability of water,” she says. “That is why this discussion should go beyond where it’s now.”

More than 70 percent of the Southern African Development Community’s population depends directly on farming, overwhelmingly on rain-fed agriculture. The CSIR’s projections are among many drawing attention to how predicted changes to rainfall, limited resources for adaptation and a lack of institutions and capacity to regulate river and stream flow will leave people in Southern Africa and across the continent extremely vulnerable.

Similar challenges are predicted not only for Africa, but across the world as weather patterns change, but Africa’s lack of irrigation and other infrastructure is a factor that magnifies the need for urgent intervention.

Africa’s response

As rainfall patterns change, Africa is facing major crises. Millions faced famine in Niger and Mali in 2010 after drought hit farmers and herders. This year, the Horn of Africa has been facing its worst drought in 50 years and millions are suffering from hunger. According to the U.N. World Food Programme, some 12.3 million people in the Horn are in need of emergency assistance.

Rhoda Peace, the African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, points out that when African leaders talk about climate change; they invariably talk about droughts and floods’, showing that water is already a high priority.

In 2008, African heads of state agreed to make water and sanitation a priority.

“Leaders agreed to allocate at least 0.5 percent of their national budget to water,” says Peace. “Now whether that is actually the case is another story, but some countries are doing very well and may reach their targets.”

Providing adequate access to water across Africa will cost billions of dollars. And for the many African governments which are failing to honour earlier commitments will not be able to raise the required amounts without support.

Simon Thuo, the Eastern Africa coordinator for GWP, says he is surprised that despite the clear need, even the African negotiating group’s proposals mention water only in passing. Along with other experts, he believes that if climate negotiations address management of this essential commodity specifically, it will not receive the necessary attention and funding.

(END/2011)

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 (IPS) – Emerging economies China, South Africa and Brazil have indicated their openness to legally-binding carbon emission reduction targets from 2020 during the United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa.

Climate experts say the three countries’ willingness to consider legally binding commitments, even if they will not take immediate effect, was potentially “a great step” to unlock one of the big political issues of this year’s climate change talks.

Only India continues to refuse to commit.

The European Union (EU) proposed a “roadmap” last week, which stipulates that all major economies, including emerging countries like South Africa, Brazil, India and China, generally called the BASIC group – and not only industrialised nations as currently under the Kyoto Protocol – will be subject to legally binding carbon emission targets.

BASIC countries all face developmental challenges but are at the same time significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Major emerging economies and other developing nations already emit more than half of current carbon emissions. Within the next 20 years, they are projected to account for two- thirds.

The 194-nation climate talks, which will wrap up on Dec. 9, are abuzz with speculation on the prospect of emerging economies agreeing on the proposed roadmap.

In a move that surprised many after a tough week of negotiations that brought to the fore deep rifts between different countries’ demands and expectations, China announced for the first time it would accept a legally-binding climate deal after 2020, when current voluntary pledges will run out. After first insisting the demands of the EU roadmap were “too much,” China now seems open to finding a middle ground, especially with Europe.

“But there are pre-conditions,” said China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua. “A second Kyoto commitment period is a must for rich nations. After (the second period has ended), we need to review what has been done. Based on this assessment can we start negotiating what we shall agree after 2020.”

China laid out five conditions under which it would consider a legally-binding carbon reduction deal. Apart from a second commitment period of carbon-reduction pledges by industrialised nations under the Kyoto Protocol, they include hundreds of billions of dollars in short- and long-term climate financing for developing countries.

China also wants to see the Green Climate Fund signed off during the summit and demands the implementation of a range of agreements outlined at the 2009 Copenhagen summit, which were integrated into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at last year’s climate gathering in Cancun. These include initiatives for technology transfer, adaptation to climate change and new rules for verifying that carbon-cutting promises are kept.

South Africa and Brazil – two countries most vulnerable to the adverse effects of global warming, especially with regards to agriculture and biodiversity – have also shown interest in the roadmap.

South Africa’s Minister of Environment Edna Molewa said the EU roadmap was “seen favourably”, but noted that South Africa would, like China, want to place “conditionalities” on any binding agreements.

“We would like to work towards a legally binding outcome. As South Africa, we’re of the opinion that the seriousness with which we will deal with the level of contributions that South Africa can make in the global arena is understood in the context of articles 4.1 and 2 of the UNFCCC,” confirmed South Africa’s second negotiator Xolisa Ngwadla.

UNFCCC article 4.1 refers to “common and differentiated responsibilities” depending on the gross domestic product (GDP) of each country, while article 2 refers to the stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions at a level that allows ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner – a point important for countries that heavily feel the effects of climate change.

“Our future commitments will also depend on finance, technology transfers and capacity building,” Ngwadla added.

Contrary to South Africa, Brazil said it is not placing any conditions on committing itself to an internationally legally binding instrument to reduce carbon emissions as long as such a treaty helped the fight against climate change based on scientific studies.

“We could agree already today on an internationally legally binding instrument, but not on any. It has to be robust, respond to what science is telling us is needed and therefore something that will make a difference in the fight against climate change,” explained Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, head of Brazil’s delegation. “We would not adapt a legally binding instrument for the sake of it.”

Currently, Brazil has set voluntary carbon reduction targets, which have been passed into national law. Figueiredo said he is aware this commitment will have to increase over time: “We understand that this regime will have to evolve over time. We think voluntary actions alone usually don’t add up to the level of international response that science tells us is needed. We are willing to play our part in the future evolution of the international fight against climate change.”

As part of the Group of 77 and China negotiating bloc, a group of 132 developing countries, Brazil is pushing for the adoption for a second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. The country is also lobbying for a sign off of a fully functional Green Climate Fund, which will have short-term and long-term financing mechanisms so that developing nations can adapt to climate change.

Delegates from BASIC countries have repeatedly noted that South-South cooperation is important to them, not only economically but also with regards to decisions made during the climate change summit, and have indicated that they would support each other’s positions.

India, however, the fourth member of the BASIC group, does not seem to fall into line. It has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the EU roadmap, as it is not willing to consider signing a legally binding agreement to cut carbon emissions.

India said it felt implementing its voluntary target of reducing the emission intensity of its GDP growth by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020, compared to 2005, was sufficient. Having one of the smallest per-capita-carbon footprints in the world, tougher targets weren’t necessary, said India’s lead negotiator J.M. Mauskar: “We are not a major emitter.”

India was only willing to negotiate “mutual reassurances”, he said. “In terms of the Cancun pledges, developing countries’ voluntary pledges by 2020 amount to more mitigation in absolute terms than that of developed countries,” Mauskar further explained, insisting that rich nations, not developing countries and emerging economies must ramp up their commitments.

India has criticised industrialised nations, especially the United States, for not making firm commitments to cutting green house gas emissions. “We are deeply concerned that there has been hardly any progress in achieving a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,” said Mauskar.

Russia, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, which belongs with South Africa, China, Brazil and India to the BRICS economic bloc, has blankly refused to consider a second commitment period.

(END/2011)

Nalifu Yussif sostiene cestas bolga en la COP 17, que se realiza en Durban, Sudáfrica, del 29 de noviembre al 9 de diciembre. Crédito: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS.

Por Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 5 dic (IPS) Talata Nsor, originaria de la norteña comunidad ghanesa de Bolgatanga, lleva buena parte de sus 54 años de vida tejiendo las cestas típicas de la zona. Pero en los últimos tiempos se le hace muy difícil conseguir la materia prima.

La actividad fue redituable para Nsor en el pasado, pues le permitió incluso pagar la escuela de sus hijos. Sin embargo, ahora cada vez se puedan producir menos cestas bolga, famosas en África occidental y vendidas en mercados de Europa y América, porque el material usado, conocido como hierba de elefante, se extingue, debido al cambio de las condiciones climáticas.

“Hace 10 años caminaba hasta cualquier pantano cercano, en el norte de Ghana, y cortaba la hierba sin costo alguno. En cambio, ahora tengo que ir muy lejos o, incluso, llegar hasta Kumasi, a unos400 kilómetros, para comprarla”, explicó.

La hierba de elefante solo crece en pantanos, que ahora la población de la zona los utiliza para cultivar y paliar la inseguridad alimentaria ante la falta de lluvias.

“La gente prefiere convertir los pantanos en granjas hortícolas frente al fracaso de la agricultura dependiente de la lluvia”, indicó Nafisatu Yussif, oficial de programa de Abantu, organización que promueve políticas con perspectiva de género en África.

“Las precipitaciones ya no son confiables y la gente necesita cultivar en zonas donde la irrigación esté asegurada”, apuntó.

Nafisatu Yussif es una de las muchas representantes de comunidades rurales de todo el mundo que lograron llegar hasta esta ciudad sudafricana para alzar su voz en la  17 Conferencia de las Partes (COP) dela Convención Marcode las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, de dos semanas que terminará este viernes 9.

“Recibimos a diferentes mujeres de distintos ámbitos”, señaló Samantha Hargreaves, de ActionAid Internacional (http://www.actionaid.org/?intl=), una de las organizadoras de la Asamblea de Mujeres Rurales, que se realiza en forma paralela a la COP 17 (http://www.cop17-cmp7durban.com/), que comenzó el 29 de noviembre.

“Más de 500 mujeres en este foro comparten experiencias de diferentes países sobre cómo seguir adelante y mostrar las mejores prácticas. El resultado de la asamblea se presentará al Grupo Africano de Negociadores como posición común de las representantes de los países más pobres”, indicó Hargreaves.

Según las participantes de la asamblea, las mujeres de países pobres afrontan dificultades similares.

“En mi país, las mujeres trabajan duro en la huerta, pero a la hora de cosechar, los hombres asumen la responsabilidad de recaudar el dinero. Me acabo de enterar de que lo mismo ocurre en África y otros países asiáticos”, indicó María Estela Jocón González, quien representa a las campesinas de tres regiones de Guatemala propensas a inundaciones, fenómeno que se agravó en los últimos tiempos.

“Cuando hay inundaciones, los pozos se llenan de agua sucia. Según nuestra cultura, es responsabilidad de la mujer garantizar la suficiente cantidad de líquido para beber y otros usos domésticos”, dijo a IPS.

González pide a la comunidad internacional, reunida en Durban, que asegure la implementación de sistemas para contener las crecientes inundaciones.

“Quiero escuchar que los países se comprometen a reducir las emisiones de gases contaminantes que causan el calentamiento global. Es bueno pensar en el desarrollo, pero no tiene sentido sin un ambiente sano”, observó.

Mientras hay inundaciones en Guatemala, faltan lluvias en el sur de Senegal.

Faty Khody, de la comunidad rural senegalesa de Kaulak, dijo a IPS que las lluvias en esa zona disminuyeron de900 milímetros, en2001, aentre 300 y400 milímetros, en la actualidad.

“Solíamos cultivar verduras que vendíamos en el mercado local. Pero ya no es posible, a menos que tengamos irrigación”, indicó Khody, oficial de promociones de Interpench, una organización que reúne a más de 7.700 campesinas senegalesas.

“El patrón de lluvias cambió, las sequías son más pronunciadas y, cuando llueve, hay inundaciones, que causan sufrimiento en la población rural, en especial mujeres, niños y niñas, añadió.”

Con apoyo de la organización no gubernamental Horizon 3000, Interpench lanzó un proyecto llamado “Una mujer, un árbol frutal”, como forma de adaptación al cambio climático.

“Decimos un árbol porque es el primer paso. Se entrega el almácigo de forma gratuita para plantar el primero y se le da el nombre del que lo haga, como recordatorio. Pero la idea es motivar a las mujeres a participar, no solo en la plantación de un árbol, sino en que este sea frutal”, explicó Khody.

“Esperamos que los debates enla COP17 concluyan con ideas que apoyen iniciativas femeninas de adaptación al cambio climático”, remarcó Hargreaves.

Pero para que esos proyectos tengan éxito, deben erigirse sobre los sistemas de conocimiento indígenas, insistió.

“El Grupo Africano de Negociadores no debe sucumbir ante la presión de los países ricos enla COP17”, remarcó.

“La mayoría de las negociaciones se realizan en salas de reuniones sin involucrar a la gente de a pie”, coincidió Elizabeth Kakukuru, oficial de programa de la Unidadde Género de la Comunidadde Desarrollo de África Austral (http://www.sadc.int/).

“Pero las recomendaciones elaboradas deben ser implementadas por campesinas. Llegó la hora de que las partes afectadas participen de forma directa en estas importantes negociaciones”, indicó.

En lo que respecta a la transferencia de tecnología para adaptarse al cambio climático, Kakukuru observó que todos los proyectos deben ser apropiados y desarrollados en consulta con las comunidades indígenas. (FIN)

Nalifu Yussif holds a few Bolga baskets at the ongoing COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. Materials for making these hand woven baskets are becoming more difficult to source due to climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 (IPS) – Talata Nsor, a 54-year-old woman from Bolgatanga community in Northern Ghana, has been weaving the cultural Bolga baskets, which are named after her community, her entire life.

It has been a successful enterprise for her, and she has even managed to put her children through school with proceeds from her sales.

However, she is concerned that soon her community may no longer be able to continue making the baskets, which are famous in the entire West African region, with a market in Europe and America.

This is because the raw material used to make the baskets, commonly known as elephant grass or Veta vera as it is known scientifically, is becoming extinct due to what Nsor refers to as changing climatic conditions.

“Just 10 years ago, I would walk to any nearby wetland area within Northern Ghana and harvest the grass free of charge. But today, I have to walk very far, or travel to Kumasi, about 400 kilometres away, in order to buy the raw material,” said Nsor.

The elephant grass can only grow in wetlands. But according to experts from the area, people are converting wetlands into agricultural land as a means of coping with the lack of rain and rising food insecurity.

“People prefer turning wetlands into horticultural zones because rain-fed agriculture is failing. Rain patterns are no-longer reliable, and people need to farm in places where they are assured of water for irrigation,” said Nafisatu Yussif, Programme Officer at ABANTU, an organisation that engages policies from a gender perspective in Africa.

She is one of the many women representing their communities from all over the world who have made their way to the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in order to have their voices heard.

“We are hosting different women from different walks of life,” said Samantha Hargreaves of ActionAid International, one of the conveners of the Rural Women’s Assembly running alongside the 17th Conference of Parties.

“More than 500 women in this forum are sharing experiences from different countries, suggesting the way forward, and showcasing their best practices. The outcome of the assembly will be presented to the African Group of Negotiators as a common position of women from the world’s poor countries,” said Hargreaves.

However, according to the assembly’s participants, women from poor countries have predicaments that are almost similar.

“In my country, women toil on the farms, but when it comes to harvesting, the men take the responsibility of collecting the money. I have just learnt that the situation is the same in Africa and other Asian countries,” said María Estela Jocón González, who is representing rural women from three rural regions in Guatemala.

The western, southern and northern regions of Guatemala are areas prone to floods, a situation which has worsened in the recent past, González said.

“When the floods come, the water wells get soaked up with dirty flooding water. Yet according to our culture, it is the sole responsibility of a woman to ensure that the family has enough safe water for drinking and other domestic uses,” she told IPS.

She is calling for the international community meeting in Durban to ensure systems are put in place to keep in check the increasing floods.

“I want to hear of commitments for countries to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global warming. It is good to think about development, but development without a sound environment is useless,” she said.

While there is flooding in Guatemala, southern Senegal is experiencing a lack of rainfall. Faty Khody from Kaulak, a rural community found in the southern part of Senegal, told IPS that rainfall in the area has dropped from an average of 900 millimetres in 2001, to between 300 and 400 millimetres currently.

“We used to grow vegetables and sell them in the local market. But currently, this is not possible unless it is done through irrigation,” said Khody, who works as a promotional officer for Interpench, a community-based organisation that brings together over 7,700 women from rural Senegal.

“The rain patterns have changed, droughts have become extreme, and when it rains, it results in floods, which often cause suffering to the rural people, especially women and children.”

With support from the non-governmental organisation Horizon 3000, Interpench has started a project called “One woman, one fruit tree” as a way of adapting to climate change.

“We say one tree because it is the first step. The seedling for the one tree is given out free of charge, and it is named after whoever plants it as a reminder. However, it is supposed to be a motivation for women to participate largely in not only the planting of trees, but planting fruit-producing trees,” Khody said.

“We are hoping that the deliberations at COP 17 will come up with ideas that will support such women- driven climate change adaptation initiatives,” said Hargreaves.

However, she insists that for such projects to succeed, they must be built on indigenous knowledge systems.

“The African Group of Negotiators must not succumb to the pressure from the developed countries at COP 17,” she said.

Similar views were shares by Elizabeth Kakukuru, the Programme Officer for the Gender Unit at the Southern African Development Community.

“Most negotiations have always been done in boardrooms without involving the person on the ground. Yet the recommendations made are supposed to be implemented by a woman who lives in a rural area. Time has come for the affected parties to be involved directly in such important negotiations,” she said.

With regards to the use of technology transfer for climate change adaptation, Kakukuru observed that all projects must be appropriate, and should be developed in consultation with indigenous communities.

(END/2011)

Por Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 3 dic (IPS) Con ruidosos cantos, miles de personas recorrieron las calles de la ciudad sudafricana de Durban hasta la sede de la cumbre de las Naciones Unidas sobre cambio climático para reclamar “una inmediata y drástica” reducción de emisiones de carbono destinada a salvar el planeta.

En este sábado 3 de diciembre, Día Mundial de Acción, manifestantes de organizaciones no gubernamentales nacionales e internacionales y de grupos de trabajadores, mujeres, jóvenes, académicos, religiosos y ecologistas se unieron para hacer oír ante los gobiernos del mundo la demanda de una acción firme de combate al cambio climático.

En esta ciudad del este de Sudáfrica se celebra desde el 28 de noviembre hasta el 9 de este mes la 17 sesión de la Conferencia de las Partes (COP 17) de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).

“Pedimos un cambio de 100 por ciento. Hoy nace un poderoso movimiento que desafía a las naciones ricas del mundo”, dijo el integrante del comité organizador del Día Mundial de Acción, Desmond D’Sa. “Los dirigentes mundiales discute la suerte de nuestro planeta, pero están lejos de lograr una solución al cambio climático”.

Es hora de que los negociadores escuchen la voz de la gente común, dijeron los manifestantes. Algunos portaban pancartas con las leyendas “Nunca confíes en la COP 17″, “Unidos contra el cambio climático”, “Justicia climática ya” y “Aseguremos la supervivencia de las futuras generaciones”.

Había en la calle el sentimiento generalizado de que la gente común sigue excluida de debates cruciales sobre asuntos que afectan sus vidas.

“Queremos que el uno por ciento que está dentro (de la conferencia) escuche lo que tiene para decir el 99 por ciento que está afuera”, explicó Bobby Peek, uno de los organizadores de la protesta y director de Amigos de la Tierra África. “Reclamamos cortes inmediatos y drásticos de las emisiones a los países ricos que han causado el cambio climático”.

Era palpable el disgusto sobre el avance lentísimo de las negociaciones en la primera semana de la COP 17, mezclado con el temor de que la cumbre termine sin resultados tangibles.

Peek sostuvo que estaba muy decepcionado por el estado de las conversaciones. “Fue una semana desastrosa. No hay señales de avance en metas” de reducción de las emisiones que están causando el calentamiento global, aseveró.

El director ejecutivo de Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, acusó a Estados Unidos por no haber ratificado nunca el Protocolo de Kyoto, el único instrumento internacional obligatorio para abatir la contaminación climática.

“Esto no es un ensayo general. Esta semana de beligerancia, riñas y puñaladas por la espalda debe dar paso a acuerdos reales sobre el futuro del planeta. Quienes no estén interesados en salvar vidas, economías y ambientes, como Estados Unidos, deben apartarse y permitir avanzar a los que tienen voluntad política”, dijo Naidoo.

Una ruidosa columna de manifestantes se dirigió desde el centro de Durban hasta la entrada del Centro Internacional de Convenciones, donde se celebra la COP 17, para entregar a la secretaria ejecutiva de la CMNUCC, la costarricense Christiana Figueres, una lista con todos los puntos que los gobiernos deberían lograr antes de que concluya la reunión:

• Asegurar que el punto más alto de emisiones mundiales de gases de efecto invernadero se alcance en 2015.
• Prorrogar el Protocolo de Kyoto y asegurar que contenga un mandato para establecer un amplio instrumento legalmente obligatorio.

• Entregar la financiación necesaria para hacer frente al cambio climático.
• Establecer un marco de protección para los bosques de los países en desarrollo.
• Asegurar la cooperación mundial en materia de tecnología y financiación energética.
• Asegurar un sistema internacional transparente para medir y fiscalizar los compromisos y acciones nacionales.

Los activistas criticaron a las naciones ricas e industriales por usar la crisis económica mundial como excusa para dar prioridad a los intereses nacionales sobre los internacionales. Tras una semana de conversaciones, sigue sin saberse cómo se obtendrán los recursos para financiar proyectos de mitigación y adaptación, particularmente cruciales para los países pobres.

“Por ahora no sabemos de dónde vendrá el dinero. Hay un verdadero riesgo de que nos vayamos de Durban con los bolsillos vacíos. Y este fracaso se medirá en vidas, economías y hábitats”, advirtió el coordinador de política climática de Greenpeace, Tove Ryding. “Si los gobiernos no avanzan, el acuerdo final estará desprovisto de toda capacidad de proteger el clima”.

La marcha de este sábado interpela especialmente a los ministros y jefes de Estado y de gobierno que empezarán a llegar a la cumbre el lunes 5.

“No podemos seguir hablando y perdiendo el tiempo”, apuntó el coordinador de ActionAid Internacional, Harjeet Singh. “Marchamos hoy para mostrar nuestra indignación. Queremos dejarles a los ministros un mensaje claro: No pueden seguir poniendo pretextos”. (Fin)

Niños apoyan en Durban los esfuerzos para la reducción de emisiones de carbono. Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Por Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 2 dic (IPS)  La sociedad civil alertó en Durban sobre el peligro de convertir tierras africanas destinadas a la producción de alimentos en cultivos con vistas a comerciar créditos de carbono.

Representantes de organizaciones no gubernamentales reclamaron este viernes 2 a Sudáfrica, país anfitrión de la 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17), que no incluya la llamada “agricultura climáticamente inteligente” en las negociaciones.

El presidente sudafricano Jacob Zuma declaró que la agricultura debería ser parte de un nuevo tratado climático. Otros funcionarios de este país ya habían dicho antes a IPS que querían incluirla para que hubiera “fondos específicos y acciones específicas” en el contexto de la Convención Marco.

“Poner a la agricultura en un futuro tratado climático es como un premio consuelo para África porque los países ricos no pudieron acordar objetivos legalmente vinculantes” para la reducción de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, dijo Teresa Anderson, de la Gaia Foundation, una organización no gubernamental con sede en Londres.

“Este premio consuelo es un cáliz envenenado. Conducirá a la apropiación de tierras y pondrá a los agricultores africanos en manos de los inconstantes mercados de carbono”, declaró Anderson a IPS.

La agricultura es una importante fuente de gases invernadero, como el carbono y el metano, que representan entre 15 y 30 por ciento de las emisiones contaminantes mundiales. Cuando se incluye a todo el sistema de producción de alimentos, las emisiones totales derivadas de la agricultura equivalen a casi la mitad de todas las emisiones. Por esos motivos hubo esfuerzos previos para incorporar esta actividad en un nuevo tratado climático.

Los cambios en las prácticas agrícolas pueden reducir las emisiones en gran proporción. Sin embargo, la mejor manera de hacerlo es mediante regulaciones, no a través de un tratado climático ni de créditos de carbono, según Anderson.

“¿Por qué ahora los mercados se ven como la única solución, cuando hace menos de 10 años ni siquiera estaban en la mira?”, planteó.

El Banco Mundial, la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) y otras entidades están a favor de una “agricultura climáticamente inteligente”. Esta adopta prácticas sustentables, aumenta la productividad y la resiliencia a los cambios meteorológicos y reduce y/o elimina los gases invernadero. La sociedad civil objeta esto último.

“Todo esto tiene que ver con nuevos mercados de carbono. El Norte todavía no hizo los necesarios recortes de emisiones y quiere esto para poder simular que reduce sus emisiones”, sostuvo Helena Paul, de la organización ambientalista EcoNexus.

Esto plantea un profundo peligro para la agricultura, “con un potencial real de que haya más apropiaciones de tierras y expansión de monocultivos para poder cosechar créditos”, dijo Paul.

Según Anderson, los gobiernos africanos ven los 144.000 millones de dólares del mercado de carbono europeo y piensan que pueden ser una gran fuente de financiamiento. Pero mucho menos de uno por ciento terminó en proyectos reales, agregó.

El primer proyecto para vender créditos de carbono del suelo en África está en marcha en Kenia. Financiado por el Banco Mundial, unos 15.000 agricultores y 800 organizaciones agrícolas cambian sus prácticas para secuestrar carbono por un periodo de 20 años.

Los costos de establecer el Proyecto de Carbono Agrícola de Kenia, junto con los que implica medir el carbono y comerciar los créditos, se estiman en más de un millón de dólares, dijo Anne Maina, de la filial keniata de la African Biodiversity Network.

Con los actuales precios del carbono, los agricultores recibirán apenas un dólar al año por sus esfuerzos, cuando les prometieron mucho más, enfatizó Maina. Solamente los dueños de grandes predios pueden esperar algún beneficio. Los grandes terratenientes, los consultores y otros expertos serán quienes se quedarán con la mayor tajada, dijo a IPS.

“África ya está sufriendo una epidemia de concentración de tierras. La carrera por el control de los suelos para el comercio de carbono solo puede empeorar esto”, añadió.

El Proyecto de Carbono Agrícola de Kenia promueve prácticas agrícolas sustentables como la agroforestería, que son buenas para la tierra y aumentan la producción alimentaria, reconoció. Sin embargo, sería mucho mejor financiarlo con los fondos para la adaptación al cambio climático que prometieron aportar los países industrializados.

“Los mercados de carbono son altamente volátiles”, dijo Steve Suppan, del Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, con sede en Estados Unidos.

En noviembre, la tonelada de carbono se cotizó a apenas seis dólares, 50 por ciento de su precio de enero. En buena medida, esto es consecuencia de la crisis financiera europea. Los precios del carbono simplemente son demasiado poco confiables para que la mayoría de los inversores los consideren a largo plazo, señaló Suppan.

Además, medir cuánto carbono se secuestra es un procedimiento extremadamente técnico e incierto a largo plazo, así que inversores como el Banco Mundial reducen 60 por ciento su valor.

“Los créditos del carbono del suelo solo generarán ganancias diminutas para los agricultores, permitiendo que los mayores contaminadores sigan contaminando”, dijo Suppan.

Lo que necesita la agricultura africana es reducciones reales de las emisiones, junto con un sustancial financiamiento para la adaptación al cambio climático, agregó.

Nnimmo Bassey, presidente de Amigos de la Tierra Internacional, dijo que “los créditos de carbono del suelo son una falsa solución” al cambio climático.

Bassey reclamó a los países ricos, responsables de la crisis climática, que reafirmen sus compromisos de establecer “recortes legalmente vinculantes de las emisiones, en línea con la ciencia y la igualdad”.

“El presidente sudafricano Jacob Zuma debe apoyar a África y ser intransigente… Necesitamos que los países ricos hagan recortes profundos, drásticos y vinculantes de las emisiones, y finanzas climáticas reales y públicas, no un mandato para una nueva ola de colonialismo financiero” a través de disposiciones contenidas en el Fondo Verde para el Clima, señaló en un comunicado el activista Bobby Peek, del capítulo sudafricano de Amigos de la Tierra.

Manifestantes del Sierra Club declaran muerto al carbono en Durban. Crédito: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Por Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 2 dic (IPS) Al finalizar la primera semana de negociaciones climáticas de la ONU, hay serias dudas sobre la adopción del Fondo Verde para el Clima y parece cada vez más improbable un tratado vinculante para reducir emisiones contaminantes que suceda al Protocolo de Kyoto.

Varios países sudamericanos, Estados Unidos, Arabia Saudita, Egipto, Nigeria y Venezuela manifestaron sus reservas sobre el Fondo Verde y expresaron la necesidad de revisar algunas de sus cláusulas.

La Unión Europea (UE), que continúa apoyando el borrador que daría nacimiento al Fondo, urgió a los países a no retrasar su avance, pero hasta ahora no tuvo éxito.

“Debería ser posible acordar el instrumento tal como figura en el proyecto. Es un buen acuerdo. Y en su formato actual atraerá financiamiento significativo”, dijo el negociador de la UE Tomasz Chruszczow.

“Sería contraproducente embarcarse en más debates técnicos”, agregó.

Organizaciones no gubernamentales y activistas coinciden en que reabrir el texto en negociación perjudicará seriamente las posibilidades de dejar listo el Fondo Verde antes de que finalice la 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17), que se desarrolla hasta el 9 de este mes en Durban, Sudáfrica.

“Esto significaría que no haya ningún instrumento para canalizar dinero. Entendemos que algunas partes tienen preocupaciones, pero este texto representó un acuerdo político finamente equilibrado, y finalizarlo insumió meses”, se lamentó Tasneem Essop, jefe de estrategias climáticas internacionales en el Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza.

Propuesto inicialmente en 2009 en Copenhague, el Fondo Verde para el Clima se aprobó en la COP 16, celebrada hace un año en Cancún, con el objetivo de asistir a las naciones pobres en la mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático.

Entonces, el Norte industrial se comprometió a aportar 30.000 millones de dólares en 2012 y 100.000 millones de dólares anuales para 2020.

Ahora, se espera que los delegados de más de 190 países reunidos en Durban den por concluido el proceso de puesta en marcha del Fondo Verde.

En un intento de lograr consenso, la presidenta de la COP 17, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, dijo que dialogará con representantes de varios países en “debates transparentes e informales”.

Sin embargo, no hay un proceso o calendario definitivo para esas conversaciones. Partidarios del Fondo Verde retienen el aliento mientras esperan el informe de Nkoana-Mashabane.

Algunos expertos sugieren que, en vez de reiniciar las negociaciones, debería haber un texto adicional al borrador del documento que resuelva algunas de las preocupaciones más acuciantes, mientras que otros asuntos pueden ser abordados por la directiva del Fondo, una vez que se la elija.

Economía de la adaptación

Un financiamiento inmediato para la adaptación y la mitigación no solo ayudará a los países a enfrentar el cambio climático, sino que también tendrá un fuerte efecto económico.

El Banco Mundial y el Servicio Geológico de Estados Unidos estiman que las pérdidas económicas mundiales por catástrofes naturales en los años 90 se podrían haber reducido en 280.000 millones de dólares si se hubieran invertido apenas 40.000 millones de dólares en prevención de desastres.

Pero dos años después de comprometerse a movilizar recursos financieros para la adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático, los países industrializados todavía tienen que determinar de dónde vendrán los fondos públicos prometidos. En cambio, se han centrado en cómo movilizar al sector privado.

Si el Fondo tiene las arcas vacías, no tendrá razón de ser, advirtió Ilana Solomon, consejera de políticas en el capítulo estadounidense de ActionAid.

“Sabemos que estos tiempos son duros para la asistencia financiera y que los presupuestos son ajustados”, señaló, en referencia a la crisis de la eurozona, “pero la verdad es que los países ricos pueden aportar el dinero”.

Las dificultades para garantizar el financiamiento del Fondo Verde son alarmantes porque, aunque los países terminaran aportando la totalidad del presupuesto, eso no alcanzaría.

La Comisión Europea y el Banco Mundial estiman que se necesita por lo menos el doble de esa suma para la adaptación y la mitigación en los países en desarrollo. Otros expertos señalan que el mundo necesitará 5,7 billones de dólares para 2035 a fin de abordar los efectos del cambio climático.

“El costo de la inacción es mucho más alto que el de la acción”, dijo la consejera de políticas sobre cambio climático de la filial australiana de Oxfam Internacional, Kelly Dent.

Hasta ahora, los países no han acordado un solo mecanismo para atraer fondos públicos.

Kyoto: ¿una evasión?

En medio de los acalorados debates sobre el Fondo Verde, se agotan las posibilidades de que los países acuerden un segundo periodo de compromisos del Protocolo de Kyoto, que expirará a fines de 2012.

Más allá del bloque de países de la UE, ninguna otra nación industrializada apoya una extensión. Estados Unidos, Rusia y Japón expresaron su desinterés, mientras que Canadá generó protestas públicas esta semana cuando se supo que quiere abandonar el Protocolo, probablemente para evitar multas por no cumplir con sus objetivos de reducción de emisiones.

“No podemos dejar que la medida adoptada por Canadá nos distraiga del progreso muy real que puede lograrse con la UE y otros, como camino crucial hacia un régimen legalmente vinculante” para la reducción de emisiones, urgió Dent.

Incluso la UE cambió levemente de pisada. Ahora quiere que los principales emisores mundiales de gases de efecto invernadero acuerden para 2015 un pacto a implementarse como mucho en 2020, y a cambio ofrece ampliar sus objetivos de reducción de emisiones bajo el Protocolo de Kyoto.

La UE dice que espera salir del punto muerto en que están las conversaciones y hallar un común denominador con China y otras economías emergentes.

Pero los expertos en cambio climático creen que no se puede esperar hasta 2020 para fijar objetivos firmes de reducción de emisiones. “Necesitamos ambición para ampliar los objetivos de reducción de emisiones a partir de 2012”, dijo Dent.

Los países en desarrollo –especialmente en África, donde el cambio climático se sentirá con más crudeza– apuestan a que la UE pueda convencer a otras naciones industrializadas de comprometerse con un segundo período del Protocolo de Kyoto.

“Para nosotros hay mucho en juego”, dijo Raymond Lumbuenamo, coordinador regional para África central del Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza.

“Ya experimentamos los impactos reales del cambio climático. Somos las víctimas de un cambio que no causamos. África no quiere ser el cementerio de este tratado”, agregó.

Only owners of large tracts of land can be expected to benefit from soil carbon credits. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

By Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 2 (IPS) – Civil society has warned of the danger of turning Africa’s food-producing lands into “carbon farms” so that rich countries can avoid making cuts in their carbon emissions.

On Friday, they called on host country South Africa to refrain from forcing so-called “climate smart” agriculture into the United Nations climate treaty negotiations known as the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17).

South African President Jacob Zuma has stated that agriculture should be part of a new climate treaty. South African officials have previously told IPS they want it included so there will be “specific funds and specific actions” for agriculture under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“Putting agriculture into a future climate treaty is supposedly a consolation prize to Africa for failure by rich countries to agree to legally binding targets,” said Teresa Anderson of the Gaia Foundation, an international non-governmental organisation based in London.

“This consolation prize is a poisoned chalice. It will lead to land grabs and deliver African farmers into the hands of fickle carbon markets,” Anderson told IPS.

Agriculture is a major source of global warming gases like carbon and methane – directly accounting for 15 percent to 30 percent of global emissions. When the entire food production system is included, total agriculture emissions represent nearly half of all emissions. For those reasons there have been previous efforts to incorporate agriculture under a new climate treaty.

Changes in agricultural practices can greatly reduce emissions.  However, the best way to do that is through regulations, not a climate treaty and carbon credits, said Anderson.

“Why are markets now seen as the only solution when less than 10 years ago they weren’t a focus at all?”

The World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and other organisations favour what they call “climate smart” agriculture that is defined as forms of farming that are sustainable, increases productivity and resilience to changing weather while reducing and/or removing greenhouse gases. It is the latter that civil society objects to.

“This is all about new carbon markets. The North still has not made the necessary emission cuts and want this so they can pretend to reduce their emissions,” said Helena Paul of EcoNexus, an environmental NGO.

“There is a profound danger to agriculture here, with real potential for more land grabbing and expansion of monocultures in order to harvest credits,” said Paul.

African governments see the 144 billion dollars in the European carbon market and think this would be a great source of funding, said Anderson. But in fact very little of this money, much less than one percent, ended up in actual projects, she said.

The very first project to sell soil carbon credits in Africa is underway in Kenya. Funded by the World Bank, some 15,000 farmers and 800 farmer groups are changing their practices to sequester carbon for a 20-year period. The costs to set up the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project along with the costs involved in measuring the carbon and marketing the credits are estimated at more than one million dollars, said Anne Maina of the African Biodiversity Network in Kenya.

At current carbon prices, farmers will get just a dollar a year for their efforts when they were promised much more, said Maina. Only owners of large tracts of land can be expected to benefit. Large landowners and the consultants and other experts will get most of the money, she told IPS.

“Africa is already suffering from a land grab epidemic – the race to control soils for carbon trading could only make this worse.”

The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project does promote sustainable farming practices such as agroforestry that are good for the land and have increased food production she acknowledged. However, it would be far better to fund these with the adaptation funding that has been promised by developed countries.

“Carbon markets are highly volatile,” said Steve Suppan of the Institute for Trade and Agriculture, a United States-based civil organisation focused on agriculture.

In November the carbon price was just six dollars a tonne, 50 percent of what it was in January largely as a result of the European financial crisis. Carbon prices are simply too unreliable for most investors to consider as long-term investments, said Suppan.

Moreover, measuring how much carbon has been sequestered is extremely technical and uncertain over the long term and so investors like the World Bank discount the value by 60 percent.

“Soil carbon credits will only generate tiny revenues for farmers and allows biggest polluters to continue to pollute,” Suppan said.

What African agriculture needs, is real emissions reductions along with substantial adaptation funding, he said.

“Soil carbon credits are a false solution,” to climate change, agreed Nnimmo Bassey, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International.

Bassey called on rich industrialised countries, which are responsible for the climate crisis, to reaffirm their commitments “to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.”

At a press conference at COP 17, Bassey and other members of African NGOs called on African delegates to stand together to make sure this meeting ends with radical action to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.

“South African President Jacob Zuma must stand with Africa and be uncompromising…. We need deep and drastic binding emissions cuts by the rich countries and real, public climate finance, not a mandate for a new wave of financial colonialism through a private sector “facility” in the new Green Climate Fund,” said Bobby Peek of Friends of the Earth South Africa said in a statement.

(END/2011)

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck but in pragmatism because of climate change.

“Farmers should be taught about good farming practises instead of blaming everything on climate change,” said Jele, who runs a dairy farm in the Luanshya Cooperbelt Province of Zambia and is the vice chairperson of the Dairy Association.

“Changes are there, no doubt, but it is also important for farmers to have the right farming practises for them to survive those changes. For example, some women are growing vegetables and, due to ignorance, dig the soil right up to edge of the river. Then, when it rains, the soil is all washed into the stream and after a few years the stream becomes shallow. And some say this is because of climate change.”

Jele said changes in the weather pattern have serious implications for farmers like her who depend on increasingly scarce water resources to keep a viable dairy herd. Crop farmers, she said, are worse off unless science and practical ideas come the rescue.

“I feel our scientists should go around talking to the farmers and making them understand the difference between climate change and self-inflicted problems through using the wrong ways of farming. That is important, because otherwise we will not find solutions that will ensure food security,” Jele said.

“Some of things we blame on climate change are failures by us farmers to do the right thing at the right time. Because there is a song of climate change, we are all singing ‘climate change, climate change’,” said Jele.

Fears of what climate change will do for African agriculture are real and in southern Africa farmers are taking action to ensure that negotiators at 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) in Durban get the message.

The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) – granted observer status at the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) session – wants the global negotiations to put agriculture firmly on the climate change agenda and establish a work programme that will outline and coordinate necessary responses such as a specific allocation to the sector under the Green Climate Fund.

Climate smart initiatives such as conservation farming, water harvesting will not only help farmers cope with extreme weather but also ensure they curb carbon emissions. According to scientists, agriculture is responsible for between 15 to 30 percent of global emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which affects the earth’s temperature.

Farmers are campaigning for a deal that specifically includes agriculture, which will be heavily affected by climate change in terms of reduced crop yields and low productivity. For them productive and sustainable and farms are the insurance against the risks of climate change.

Noting the close links between the challenges of addressing climate change and feeding a growing global population, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) President Kanayo Nwanze is to call on COP 17 to focus on helping half a billion smallholder farmers in developing countries to grow more food in environmentally sustainable ways.

According to research by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, climate change will shrink agriculture productivity with projections of a rise in temperatures and an increase in droughts and floods, which would alter agricultural seasons and decrease harvests

“Our expectations as farmers of Southern Africa is to have agriculture included in the text that will be agreed at the end of the Durban COP 17,” said Stephanie Aubin, SACAU Policy Development Officer.

“Agriculture must be included in the specific text so that there are specific funds and specific action that are implemented.”

A draft text was discussed and negotiated during the past COP meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun but was dropped because agriculture was lumped together with bunker fuels.

“It is important that agriculture has special treatment at the UNFCCC negotiations because its special in terms of livelihoods for millions of people in Africa and food security for the planet and it’s the most climate sensitive sector which at the same time can contribute adaptation and mitigation efforts,” said Aubin.

“We want a specific chapter on agriculture in the text and long term action as it will unlock funding needed by the agriculture sector in Africa to response efficiently to Climate change.”

Aubin was optimistic that with the COP 17 being held in Africa, African governments will put the required effort to push for agriculture in the final text.

A grouping of 15 global and regional organisations have endorsed a call to action for COP 17 climate change negotiators stating that whilst agriculture is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it has significant potential to be part of the solution to climate change.

“At the upcoming climate change negotiations in Durban, we call on negotiators to recognise the important role of agriculture in addressing climate change so that a new era of agricultural innovation and knowledge sharing can be achieved, said a grouping of global and regional, ” said the statement issued ahead of the Agriculture and Rural Development Day event to be held at COP 17.

“Specifically, we ask that they approve a work programme for agriculture under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice so that the sector can take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future challenges.”

Bruce Campbell, Director of the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), told IPS that agriculture has been neglected in the negotiations so far, despite the sector accounting for between 16 to 29 percent of total emissions. Additionally, he said farmers, especially poor farmers in the developing world, are going to be particularly hard-hit by climate change.

“The agricultural sector must be empowered to take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future food and energy challenges effectively,” Campbell said. “The Agriculture and Rural Development Day will not only reflect this call-to-action, but it will also showcase a series of success stories in agriculture, which specific actions could be further scaled up with further investment and a coordinated approach to implementation.”

(END/2011)

DURBAN, Afrique du Sud, 1 déc (IPS) – Les changements climatiques à travers le monde peuvent être désormais observés depuis l’espace grâce aux satellites de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture (FAO).

La FAO a lancé une nouvelle technologie qui peut étudier les forêts dans le monde via des satellites et fournir un tableau plus fiable et global des menaces communes à l’environnement, telles que la déforestation, la dégradation ou l’exploitation forestière illégale.

Utilisant une technologie d’étude par télédétection, la FAO a pris et analysé plus de 13.500 images satellitaires à haute résolution dans 102 pays. Ces images aideront les nations à évaluer avec précision l’état de leurs forêts. Le suivi du changement des forêts a des implications importantes pour la conservation de la biodiversité, le stockage du carbone et les moyens de subsistance humaine.

Les pertes de forêts dans le monde entier peuvent être désormais quantifiées pour la première fois, a annoncé la FAO lors de la 17ème Conférence des parties de l’ONU sur les changements climatiques, qui se déroule du 28 novembre au 9 décembre à Durban, en Afrique du Sud.

“C’est une étude très globale des forêts du monde. Pour la première fois, nous avons des données mondiales et régionales à long terme, cohérentes et comparables sur la perte des terres forestières. Jusqu’à présent, la plupart des informations disponibles viennent en nombre, et non sous forme de cartes (sur la base d’images satellitaires)”, a expliqué Adam Gerrand, un scientifique responsable du suivi des forêts à la FAO.

En conséquence, très peu de pays ont pu surveiller, dans le temps, l’effet des changements climatiques et l’intervention humaine sur leurs forêts de façon constante.

“Nous manquons de bonnes informations sur la déforestation et avons d’urgence besoin de plus de détails sur la dynamique de la perte des forêts. Nous n’avons pas obtenu toutes les données jusqu’ici”, a ajouté Gerrand.

Les premiers résultats obtenus à partir des données satellitaires à haute résolution montrent que la superficie forestière mondiale totale a diminué de 14,5 millions d’hectares en moyenne par an, entre 1990 et 2005. Cela s’est largement produit sous les tropiques, probablement en raison de la conversion des forêts tropicales en terres agricoles.

“Le taux de perte de forêts est passé de quatre millions d’hectares dans les années 1990 à six millions d’hectares entre 2000 et 2005″, a déclaré Gerrand. “Nous perdons le stockage de carbone vital, la biodiversité et d’autres valeurs qu’offrent les forêts”.

Toutefois, il existe aussi quelques bonnes nouvelles. L’étude montre que la déforestation ne se produit pas aussi vite que des pays le signalent. Les nouvelles données ont montré une perte nette de 73 millions d’hectares entre 1990 et 2005 par rapport à la précédente estimation de 107 millions d’hectares de perte nette pour la même période.

Pendant ce temps, la perte des forêts était la plus forte sous les tropiques, où se trouvent un peu moins de la moitié des forêts du monde, suivis de l’Afrique. L’Asie était la seule région à afficher des gains nets pour des terres forestières dans ces deux périodes. La déforestation s’est produite ici aussi, mais la plantation extensive d’arbres qui a été annoncée par plusieurs pays d’Asie, principalement la Chine , a dépassé les zones forestières qui étaient perdues.

Toutes les images satellitaires sont prises à des centaines de kilomètres et comprennent une superficie de 10 kilomètres carrés. Elles sont classées, étiquetées, puis transmises aux pays où elles ont été prises, de sorte que les gouvernements puissent examiner et confirmer les données.

“C’est un cadre que les pays peuvent utiliser pour améliorer les ressources forestières”, a expliqué Gerrand.

Certains pays ont déjà bénéficié de la nouvelle technologie satellitaire. En Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, un petit pays en Océanie, par exemple, qui est à 65 pour cent couvert de forêts, 41 images satellitaires ont été prises pour établir l’effet que les changements climatiques ont eu sur sa couverture forestière.

“Notre pays n’avait pas la technologie pour évaluer la dégradation des forêts. Les nouvelles images satellitaires améliorent la crédibilité des données”, a affirmé Dr Joe Pokana, chef du bureau national de lutte contre les changements climatiques en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée. “Nous envisageons désormais d’installer un système de surveillance national solide qui nous aidera à comprendre le niveau de dégradation et développer des politiques”.

De même, l’Angola a commencé à étudier la menace de déforestation grâce aux cartes photographiques fournies par les satellites. Les forêts constituent actuellement 43,4 pour cent de ce pays d’Afrique australe.

“Nous disposons d’importantes informations sur la façon dont nos ressources forestières sont utilisées, sur les stocks de carbone, les problèmes environnementaux, les causes de dégradation et de déforestation”, a indiqué Mateus Andre, chef du département des forêts de l’Angola. “Pour la première fois, nous avons des informations de qualité sur lesquelles nous pouvons fonder des décisions”.

Les nouvelles données sont particulièrement importantes pour des régions en développement comme l’Afrique, où les informations existantes sont souvent dépassées ou de mauvaise qualité à cause du manque de capacité. Elles diffèrent des précédentes conclusions de la FAO dans le rapport intitulé ‘Global Forest Resources Assessment of 2010′ (Evaluation des ressources forestières mondiales 2010), qui étaient basées sur une compilation de rapports nationaux qui avaient utilisé une grande variété de sources.

“La déforestation prive des millions de personnes de produits et services forestiers qui sont cruciaux pour les moyens de subsistance en milieu rural, le bien-être économique et la santé environnementale”, a expliqué Eduardo Rojas-Briales, sous-directeur général de la FAO , responsable des forêts.

“Les nouveaux chiffres satellitaires nous donnent un tableau global plus cohérent. Ensemble avec la gamme variée d’informations fournies par les rapports nationaux, ils offrent aux décideurs, à tous les niveaux, des renseignements plus précis”. (FIN/IPS/11)

Geoffrey Ndung’u earns a living growing watermelons on his dry land. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – On a Sunday evening, a track loaded with 10 tonnes of watermelons leaves Geoffrey Ndung’u’s homestead in Kanyonga village in semi-arid Eastern Kenya. It travels past a village shopping centre were people have formed a queue to receive food aid because of a prolonged drought in the area.

While his fellow villagers are feeling the effect of the drought, Ndung’u has turned it into a business and his harvest will earn him 2,000 dollars, from farming just 1.2 hectares of dry land.

“It is now two years since I learnt how to co-exist with the drought, thanks to support from ActionAid International and the Ministry of Agriculture,” says the 56-year-old father of five.

A host of humanitarian organisations in partnership with the government have undertaken to train people from drought-stricken areas in Kenya on how to take advantage of worsening conditions. “We have introduced a new project known as ‘Drought Coping Training’, where we train members of communities from arid and semi-arid areas on how to co-exist with the ever-changing climatic conditions,” says Francis Njoroge, the officer in charge of ActionAid International – Kenya in the larger Embu region.

The need for finance for adaptation measures like this forms part of the African position at the ongoing 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa.

“Africa’s commitment to addressing the change is evident across the continent. We have seen people engage in adaptation projects from the grassroots at personal and community level. Yet we are sure that this can be scaled up to national levels and eventually continental levels,” said the Permanent Secretary for Kenya’s Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources Ali Mohammed.

Kenya’s constitution recognises the importance of protecting the environment. It stipulates that farmers should ensure that at least 10 percent of their farms have trees in order to increase forest cover, while at the same time addressing the issue of climate change mitigation.

“All we need to see in Durban is for the developed world – which consists of countries that hold the biggest responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions – commit themselves to providing funds for adaptation measures, capacity building and technology transfer,” added Mohammed.

The Angolan delegation to COP 17 has also called for funding for adaptation projects. The country wants to focus on agriculture as a means of providing food security, employment and a source of income and is looking for innovative methods of food production that can withstand the changing climatic conditions.

Angola also has an action plan for alternative sources of energy.

“We are championing for the use of alternative sources of energy, especially in rural areas, in order to save forests. We are at the same time encouraging farmers to engage in sustained charcoal farming, so that trees are grown specifically for fuel production,” said Abias Huongo, the head of Angolan delegation. Angola is also seeking funding for climate monitoring mechanisms that will enable the government to put in place early warning systems for climate-related disasters.

However, the African delegation noted that the continent might fail to make further progress if there is no commitment from the developed countries to finance adaptation projects.

“The African Group of Negotiators is concerned by the insufficient transparency and slow disbursement of the financial resources pledged by developed countries as ‘fast start’ finance for the period 2010-2012. To address this, the African Group proposes a common reporting format for finance pledges,” said Seyni Nafo, the spokesperson of the African Group of Negotiators.

Head of Programmes at the Third World Network – Africa, Tetteh Hormek, echoed his sentiments. He said that the developed world should come out clearly to support developing countries to adapt to climate change.

“As the Kyoto Protocol enters into the second phase by the year 2012, we are calling upon the developed world to cut down on carbon financing mechanisms, which are like a double edged sword,” said Hormeku. (END)

Kashmir's rice paddies are giving way to horticulture for water shortages. Credit:Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Athar Parvaiz *

SRINAGAR, Nov 30, 20112011 (IPS)  Sammad Sheikh of Tangchekh village in north Kashmir cannot understand why the rice fields that his family cultivated for generations are drying up.

“It is a mystery as to why water is getting scarcer in summers,” he says. “This has been happening for the past few years though there have been one or two good summers in between.”

With no assurance of water availability, Sheikh, like his fellow farmers in the region, is looking for alternatives to paddy cultivation.

“I have heard that most of the farmers in central and south Kashmir have switched from agriculture to horticulture. I am now seriously thinking of putting a portion of my seven acres under crops that are not water-intensive,” he told IPS.

Farmers in this Himalayan region have heard of climate change and wonder why the government is yet to step in with improved irrigation facilities to help them tide over the summer months.

“The government has constructed water ponds in some areas for water harvesting, but much more has to be done to cover the entire area,” says Mukhtar Naikoo.  “Anyone can see that the droughts have become frequent and rainfall scarcer and more erratic.”

According to the study ‘Recent Trends in Meteorological Parameters over Jammu & Kashmir (1976 to 2007)’, by A. K. Jaswal and G. S. Prakasa Rao of the Indian Meteorological Department, temperatures are increasing over this state, often likened to Switzerland for its alpine charms and snow-capped mountains.

The study showed an annual increase in the maximum temperature in the Kashmir region from 0.04 to 0.05 degrees Celsius over the period and a corresponding rise in the minimum temperature in the Jammu region from 0.03 to 0.08 degrees C per year.

“Annual rainfall and rainy days are decreasing in both the regions of the state except at Jammu where rainfall trend is significantly increasing (12.05 mm per year),” says the study.

Naikoo has vivid memories of the farmer-friendly weather in Kashmir: “It would rain for days together. And, at times, we would perform a ‘bandar’ (an oblation) seeking God’s pleasure for cessation of rains.”

Like Sheikh, Naikoo is baffled at the creeping dryness. “May be God is not happy with our deeds. We are a sinful lot.”  Naikoo is not yet ready to switch to horticulture. “I am still hopeful that God will not let us down. Things will get better.”

Scientists in Kashmir are worried at the rapid conversion of paddy lands for horticultural use and the mushrooming of commercial establishments and residential colonies in the areas which were farming lands.

According to official figures, 80 percent of Kashmir’s seven million people are directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture and allied sectors. Much Kashmir’s total area of 2.4 million hectares is mountainous or forested.

Official statistics indicate the 151,352 hectares of land that used to be under cultivation in the state, a few decades ago, has now shrunk to 46,943 hectares.

“This is a dangerous trend,” warns Zaffar Ahmad Reshi, a professor in Kashmir University’s Botany department. “The government in Kashmir has no land-use policy and has failed to provide proper irrigation facilities to the farmers.”

Reshi told IPS that one glaring adaptation to climate change required in Kashmir is augmentation of the irrigation network for farming.  Irrigation networks have become all the more important in the wake of climate change.

According to the Kashmir government’s Economic Survey report for 2010-11, only 41 percent of agricultural land is covered by irrigation facilities with the rest dependent on rain.

Reshi stresses that Kashmir cannot afford to lose all its agricultural land to horticulture and built-up areas. “Rice is the staple food of Kashmiris and it is a primary commodity here. We are already importing more than 50 percent of our rice,” he said.

Naikoo has a similar perception, though from a personal point of view. “For generations our family never bought rice in the market. We grow what we need and more in our rice fields. We can’t think of any other way,” he told IPS.

But, other farmers are more adventurous and have been shifting away from paddy to cash crops like apple, almond and walnuts.

“The trend could be a consequence of climate change as farmers find it increasingly difficult to irrigate their rice fields,” says Shafiq Ahmad Wani, director of research at Kashmir’s Agriculture University.

“In the Brang area of south Kashmir, we have observed an almost total conversion from agriculture to horticulture with farmers attributing it to lack of irrigation facilities and the absence of a marketing system.”

According to Akhtar Hussain Malik, a botanist at Kashmir University, the drop in rice and maize cultivation has resulted in a lack of fodder for cattle. “Our animals are already suffering from insufficient fodder with the degradation and shrinking of pastures in Kashmir.”

Farooq Ahmad Lone, director at Kashmir’s agriculture department says the state government has plans to providing bore wells to farmers whose lands are dependent on rains.

“We suffered a 25 percent loss in maize production this year. We intend to mitigate these losses by providing bore well facilities to farmers in the hilly areas,” Lone told IPS.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

David Lessole (left) with Phera Ramoeli

By Busani Bafana

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) — The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) wants water to be tabled as a standalone item on climate change negotiations – describing it as too important to leave on the periphery.

Water – of which agriculture is the largest consumer – has been identified by scientists as a victim of climate change. Growing populations, pollution and unfair distribution have also added to water stress in southern Africa.

“Adaptation is the main priority,” South Africa’s Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa told delegates at the launch of the SADC Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) Strategy for Water during the United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa.

“We know that discussions around mitigation are important but we believe we need to do much more work in relation to adaptation so that as a continent and as SADC we can adapt to the impacts of climate change whose daily impacts we are beginning to see,” said Molewa.

Molewa called for comprehensive and integrated actions to tackle the impact of climate change on the precious water resource. Some of the actions include flood management and water use.

The SADC strategy on water is meant to improve climate resilience in the region and will guide member states with negotiations at COP 17 where pressure is on for global leaders to put the brakes on global warming by cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

“We cannot sit back and say we are seeing the impact of climate change but we cannot do something,” said Molewa, adding that, “something has to be done in the talks, COP 18, and COP 19 and … we hope we will not reach COP 28 without a solution. But, in the meantime, we need to adapt.”

The U.N. Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is responsible for the overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge of climate change. It recognises that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. After 17 years of discussions, carbon emissions are still growing.

Professor Mark New, director of the Africa Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town, said while water was important and should be highlighted, it must be integrated with other issues.

“I think that the desire to make it water stand alone stems from an important perspective that water is one of the important factors around climate change adaptation. Making it stand alone means that water is separated from many other issues it is linked with,” New told IPS.

“Water is important for energy and agriculture. In Africa, specifically in terms of coping with the changing demographics as we move from a rural society to a more urban society, we have to be thinking in a integrated manner about the way climate change will impact and how decisions we make in one area, around water, will interact with other sectors we are interested in.”

New said the underlying principle of the climate convention is to avoid dangerous climate change and water was therefore implicitly included because the impacts of climate change will affect water along with all other sectors.

During September 2011, SADC ministers responsible for water instructed the SADC Secretariat to push for the inclusion of water as a standalone agenda item under the UNFCCC negotiation. There is debate on the challenges and opportunities of having water as standalone agenda in the negotiations.

Phera Ramoeli, Head of Water Programmes, Infrastructure and Services at the SADC Secretariat told a panel discussion after the launch of the CCA strategy that having water as standalone agenda item for UNFCCC negotiators would raise its profile to attract funding for adaptation.

“We feel it is important that water is a specific agenda item on climate change debate because water is an engine and catalyst for socioeconomic development and is linked to the GDP in most of our countries where GDP is increasing by three percent where there is more water and less than one percent where there is less,” Ramoeli said.

However, David Lessole, a negotiator for Botswana, differed. He said there is need to see water as a broad issue before putting up as a major agenda items for UNFCCC.

“For something to become major agenda it has to benefit me as well,” said Lessole. “As a negotiating partner I must see something in it, for example, in the case of agriculture I can sell you technology, you get more food and become climate resilient and therefore it’s a win-win but for water no, why should I do the job that your government should be doing.”

Lessole argued that there was plenty of water but it was being wasted and was not included in development planning. Hence until such a time that water was seen as broad issue and people were ready to talk about water technologies, they should not be pushing it on the UNFCCC agenda.

(END/2011)

By Joshua Kyalimpa

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Managing the impact of increased disasters due to climate change will only be possible if such efforts are led by local communities, say non-governmental organisations working in climate change.

“We cannot use the excuse of money – or the lack of it – not to do anything. Yes, developed countries have to make financial commitments, but what if they don’t?” asks Charles Hopkins of the charity CARE International in Ethiopia, an international humanitarian organisation.

A deal on climate change at Durban might still be a far-fetched dream, but climate change-related disasters are already taking a toll around the globe.

According to a report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), increases in some extreme weather and climate events have already been observed and further increases are projected over the 21st century.

The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, evaluates the role of climate change in altering characteristics of extreme events. It assesses experience with a wide range of options used by institutions, organizations, and communities to reduce exposure and vulnerability, and improve resilience, to climate extremes.

Speaking at a press conference at United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties in Durban, South Africa, IPCC executive director Dr. Kristie Ebi highlighted that while total economic losses from natural disasters could be high in developed countries; economic losses expressed as a proportion of GDP could be higher in developing countries.

Ebi says the IPCC will soon start meeting policy makers and politicians around the world to urge them take up measures for disaster reduction: “We are committed to outreach events over the coming months with a hope that politicians and policy makers will be encouraged to advance climate change adaptation.”

According to the IPCC report, deaths from natural disasters occur much more in developing countries. Information obtained from 1970 to 2008 by the experts’ shows that more than 95 percent of deaths from natural disasters were in developing countries.

Most governments have, however, not put in place policies for disaster risk reduction. Hopkins says governments, especially those in Africa, have to take to protect people and their property.

“People have to be given the right information because information on disaster reduction remains at the top and often the affected people don’t even get it,” says Hopkins

Professor Richard Klein, of the Stockholm Environment Institute and a member of the international panel of experts, says people actually don’t have to rely on international agreements.

“Local actions by the people need to be supported because they are the most vulnerable and are more likely to put effort into adaptation measures,” says Klein.

Klein says risk management works best when tailored to local circumstances.

But Nurudeen Adebola Olanrewaju of the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, a Nigeria- based policy centre, says that while the report talks about what people are already experiencing, more was needed to drive action.

“Risk management requires actions, ranging from improving infrastructure to building individual and institutional capacity, in order to reduce risk and respond to disasters but these require money which politician must make available,” says Olanrewaju.

A separate report released by the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC), the technical arm of the Climate for Development in Africa programme, based at the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa shows that of the 29.2 billion dollars pledged since 2009, only between 2.8 and 7.0 billion dollars is “new” (i.e. not previously pledged).

The total amount of funds that are both “new and additional” (i.e. on top of aid budgets) would be less than 2 billion dollars. While 97 percent of the promised 30 billion dollars has been pledged, only 45 percent has been “committed”, 33 percent has been “allocated” and only about 7 percent has been “disbursed”.

The report released today on the sidelines of the climate talks here in Durban finds that there are many lessons to be learnt from the current “fast start finance” system. This system, agreed at the Copenhagen climate conference, was supposed to deliver 30 billion dollars in “new and additional” funding to developing countries.

Launching the report, Yacob Mulugetta, senior energy and climate specialist at the ACPC said: “The experience with the ‘fast-start’ pledges and discussions of the 100 billion dollars promise suggests that the adequacy and predictability of climate finance may remain very low if the future climate finance architecture reflects current practice.”

(END/2011)

Farming in Gabon, West Africa

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Global climate change can now be observed from space. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a new technology that can survey the world’s forests via satellites and provide a more accurate, global picture of common threats to the environment, such as deforestation, degradation or illegal logging.

Using a remote sensing surveying technology, FAO has taken and analysed more than 13,500 high-resolution satellite images in 102 countries. These images will help nations to accurately assess the state of their forests. Monitoring change in forests has important implications for biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and human livelihoods.

The losses in forests all around the world can now be quantified for the first time, FAO announced at the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties climate change summit, which is taking place from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 in Durban, South Africa.

“It’s a very comprehensive study of the world’s forests. For the first time we have consistent and comparable global and regional long-term data on forest loss land use. Up until now, most available data has come in numbers, not maps (based on satellite images),” explained FAO forest monitoring scientist Adam Gerrand.

As a result, very few countries have been able to monitor the impact of climate change and human intervention on their forests consistently over time.

“We have been lacking good data on deforestation and urgently needed more details about the dynamics of forest loss. We didn’t get the whole story until now,” Gerrand added.

The initial findings from the high-resolution satellite data show that the world’s total forest area shrank by an average of 14.5 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2005. It largely occurred in the tropics, likely attributable to the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land.

“The rate of forest loss has increased from four million hectares in 1990s to six million hectares between 2000 and 2005,” said Gerrand. “We are losing vital carbon storage, biodiversity and other values forests provide.”

There is some good news, too, however. The survey shows that deforestation does not happen quite as fast as countries have been reporting. The new data showed a net loss of 73 million hectares between 1990 and 2005 compared to previous net loss estimate of 107 million hectares for the same time period.

During that time, the loss of forests was highest in the tropics, where just under half of the world’s forests are located, followed by Africa. Asia was the only region to show net gains in forest land-use area in both periods. Deforestation occurred here as well, but the extensive planting that has been reported by several countries in Asia, mainly China, exceeded the forest areas that were lost.

All satellite images are taken a hundred kilometres apart and comprise 10 square kilometres. They are classified, labelled and then passed on to the countries where they have been taken, so that governments can review and confirm the data.

“It’s a framework countries can use to improve forest resources,” explained Gerrand.

Some countries have already benefited from the new satellite technology. In Papua New Guinea, a small country in Oceania, for example, which is to 65 percent covered with forests, 41 satellite images were taken to establish the impact climate change had on its forest cover.

“Our country didn’t have the technology to assess forest degradation. The new satellite imagery improves the credibility of data,” said Dr. Joe Pokana, head of Papua New Guinea’s national climate change office. “We now plan to establish a robust national monitoring system that will help us to understand the level of degradation and inform policy.”

Similarly, Angola has started to survey the threat of deforestation via the photographic maps provided by the satellites. Forests currently make up 43.4 percent of the southern African country.

“We how have important information about how our forest resources are utilised, carbon stocks, environmental problems, causes of degradation and deforestation,” said Mateus Andre, the head of Angola’s forestry department. “For the first time, we have quality information on which we can base decisions.”

The new data are particularly important for developing regions like Africa, where existing information is often out-dated or of low quality due to lack of capacity. They differ from previous FAO findings in the Global Forest Resources Assessment of 2010, which were based on a compilation of country reports that used a wide variety of sources.

“Deforestation is depriving millions of people of forest goods and services that are crucial to rural livelihoods, economic well-being and environmental health,” said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, FAO assistant director-general for forestry. “The new, satellite-based figures give us a more consistent global picture. Together with the broad range of information supplied by the country reports, they offer decision- makers at every level more accurate information.”

Further remote sensing studies are expected to reveal changes occurring since 2005. “Eventually we will be able to assign biomass to each site for the estimation of forest carbon emissions,” explained Frederic Achard, a scientist from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission who helped to develop the new imaging system.

Until then lies a long way ahead. Currently, the satellite technology can provide some important data, but not all. Admitted Gerrand: “We still have several decades worth of development ahead.”

(END/2011)

Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

Nastasya Tay

DURBAN, Afrique du Sud, 30 nov (IPS) – Le plan de l’Union européenne (UE) visant à sauver le Protocole de Kyoto, peut être confronté à son plus grand obstacle dans le monde en développement.

Abias Huongo, l’un des négociateurs pour l’Angola, affirme que les blocs de pays en développement dont il fait partie – y compris les groupes d’Afrique et des pays les moins avancés – ne sont pas encore capables d’exprimer leur soutien pour un accord mondial juridiquement contraignant.

“Nos partenaires ont besoin d’assumer leurs responsabilités, et ils fuient leurs engagements”, a-t-il déclaré à IPS le premier jour de la 17ème Conférence des parties (COP 17) des Nations Unies – la réunion annuelle internationale convoquée à Durban, en Afrique du Sud, pour essayer de faire des progrès dans la lutte contre les changements climatiques.

Dans une conférence préliminaire, la délégation de l’UE – considérée comme la plus enthousiaste au sujet d’une deuxième période d’engagement – a souligné qu’elle n’était pas disposée à s’engager à moins que le reste du monde ait convenu d’un accord climatique mondial.

“Le problème est que Kyoto seul ne peut pas s’attaquer aux défis climatiques auxquels nous sommes tous confrontés”, a souligné Tomasz Chruszczow, un membre de la délégation. “Nous voulons que ce cadre et 100 pour cent de ceux qui en émettent couvrent 100 pour cent des émissions mondiales”.

L’UE veut voir un accord finalisé d’ici à 2015, et opérationnel d’ici à 2020 au plus tard.

Durban représente un point crucial de prise de décisions pour la lutte mondiale contre les changements climatiques – que plusieurs organisations de la société civile et des nations en développement considèrent comme une question de vie ou de mort.

“Les choses semblent toujours impossibles jusqu’à ce qu’elles soient faites”. Ces mots de Nelson Mandela ont été repris par Christiana Figueres, responsable  des affaires climatiques à l’ONU, à la plénière d’ouverture de la COP 17.

Dans les années précédentes, les COP ont été en proie à la frustration, la méfiance et au désespoir. Mais les négociations de l’année dernière à Cancun ont réussi à alléger une partie du fardeau de la déception post-Copenhague.

Cette année, plus de 15.000 délégués sont arrivés sur la côte d’Afrique du Sud un peu plus optimistes sur des possibilités. Mais avec cet espoir, vient la responsabilité.

La première période d’engagement du Protocole de Kyoto prend fin en décembre 2012, et en l’absence de nouveaux engagements des pays développés, le monde sera laissé dépourvu de tout cadre juridiquement contraignant sur les émissions.

Les pays en développement veulent que Kyoto réussisse, a indiqué Huongo.

“Nous sommes en Afrique, et nous ne voulons pas qu’il meure sur notre continent”, a-t-il ajouté.

Il a affirmé qu’il y aurait des discussions autour d’un nouvel accord juridiquement contraignant, mais que les issues restent opaques.

Huongo a déclaré à IPS que le monde développé doit être également plus souple avec ses exigences financières pour améliorer l’accès au financement climatique pour les pays qui en ont le plus besoin. Il a indiqué que l’Angola a aussi besoin d’aide au renforcement des capacités pour combattre ses vulnérabilités.

Déjà, plusieurs pays – y compris le Japon, la Russie et le Canada – ont exprimé leur réticence à signer une seconde fois l’accord. Les médias nationaux indiquent que le Canada se prépare à annoncer son retrait de l’accord après que les négociations de la COP 17 ont été accueillies avec consternation.

Alden Meyer, de la ‘Union of Concerned Scientists’ (Union des scientifiques préoccupés), affirme que “ce serait la troisième gifle que le Canada aurait donnée dans le visage de la communauté internationale”, après être revenu sur les tentatives de respecter ses engagements, et après avoir proposé de faibles objectifs sur les émissions à Copenhague.

Meyer souligne que le Canada tente d’éviter le contrôle minutieux et la critique dont il ferait objet s’il quittait le Protocole de Kyoto à la COP 17, et agit de mauvaise foi en continuant de participer aux négociations.

La fracture entre pays développés et pays en développement est très bien vivante et active. Le président sud-africain, Jacob Zuma, a fait allusion à la situation des pays en développement dans son allocution lors de la cérémonie d’ouverture, exhortant les négociateurs à s’efforcer de trouver des solutions. Mais des groupes de la société civile, notamment ‘Greenpeace’ et ‘Oxfam International’, ont dit qu’ils étaient mécontents du manque d’ambition qu’il a exprimée.

Des groupes de différentes confessions religieuses se sont réunis à la veille des négociations dans un stade proche, pour prier pour des issues concrètes, équitables et équilibrées des négociations. Ils ont été rejoints par l’archevêque émérite Desmond Tutu, qui a demandé au monde de se préparer pour la bataille contre le réchauffement climatique.

Tutu a critiqué les pays qui refusent de signer le Protocole de Kyoto. “Dieu veut que nous vivions dans un jardin, pas dans un désert”, a-t-il déclaré à la foule.

Figueres a rejoint Tutu en s’adressant à la foule, promettant des progrès. “Quoiqu’il arrive à Durban, ce sera un pas en avant”, a-t-elle dit. “Mais souvenons-nous que ce n’est qu’une étape… Il y aura une autre COP, et encore une autre. C’est un long processus”.

Cette responsable des questions climatiques à l’ONU a souligné l’importance de regarder au-delà du Protocole de Kyoto au cours des négociations, indiquant la nécessité d’opérationnaliser certaines parties des Accords de Cancun.

Parmi les issues concrètes possibles attendues de Durban, figure la finalisation de la structure d’un Fonds vert pour le climat – un mécanisme qui gèrera et rendra compte du fonds pour le climat, y compris les 100 milliards de dollars par an d’ici à 2020, promis par les pays développés pour les mesures d’adaptation et d’atténuation dans les nations en développement.

Figueres croit que la réalisation des progrès avec le Cadre d’adaptation, également convenu à Cancun, et l’amélioration des mécanismes de transfert de technologie – qui permettront aux pays pauvres de devenir plus résistants aux assauts des phénomènes météorologiques imprévisibles et extrêmes – sont aussi faisables.

A la veille des négociations, une pluie exceptionnellement forte a inondé certaines parties de Durban, et entraîné la mort d’au moins six personnes – un prélude tragique, mais peut-être approprié pour deux semaines de discussions sur les changements climatiques.

C’est un message que les pays en développement veulent s’assurer que leurs homologues plus riches entendent: “Nous sommes ceux qui souffrent”. (FIN)

In pastoralist communities, mobile phones are crucial for alerting communities to droughts and reducing food insecurity. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Francis Mburu used to keep indigenous cattle in Entasopia village in the semi- arid Kajiado region, 160 kilometres southwest of Nairobi. However, increasing temperatures and frequent droughts in Kenya have made this difficult in recent years.

But now, in an area that has never had electricity, where education is not a priority or sometimes not an option at all, residents of Entasopia are using a solar-powered internet facility to adapt to the changing climatic conditions.

The Nguruman community, largely composed of the Maasai ethnic group, now has access to an ICT facility locally known as Maarifa (“knowledge” in Swahili) Centre. Here they are able to access climate adaptation information via the internet, videos and books. The Arid Land Information Network (ALIN), in collaboration with the Kenyan government, founded the project.

According to Samuel Nzioka, the field officer for ALIN, most of the videos shown at the centre are practical lessons in local languages aimed at boosting the understanding of the concepts of climate change and adaptation, and basic dry-land farming knowledge.

“From reading agricultural books, listening to advice from field officers manning the centre, and watching video clips that show what other farmers are doing to adapt to the changing climatic conditions in other arid areas, I have learnt more resilient methods of animal husbandry,” said Mburu, a 56-year-old father of three.

Because of the project, Mburu now keeps a herd of 45 dairy goats, and has a poultry project. He sells the chickens to the ever-growing indigenous chicken markets in urban centres.

The goat’s milk he produces fetches a higher price compared to cow’s milk.

Climate change in East Africa has resulted in higher temperatures and prolonged droughts and has meant that farmers have had to adapt along with these changes.

“We have seen our pastoralists move to higher grounds in Ethiopia in search of greener pastures. We have seen animal species, that we thought could tolerate drought, die as a result of the prolonged drought. It means that it is not business as usual,” said Dr. Miano Mwangi, assistant director for Animal Production at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, and the national coordinator at the Kenya Arid and Semi-Arid Land programme.

It is successes like the one in Entasopia that has experts at the ongoing United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) urging the international community to consider technology transfer as one of the main methods of adapting to climate change.

“In Ghana, we call it climate education, where information communication technology is used to educate people of how to adapt to the new phenomenon,” Atsu Titiati, the Tree Programme director at the Ghana office of Rainforest Alliance, an international non-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation of tropical forests, told IPS.

He said that in northern Ghana, communities rely on community-based radio to know what types of seed to plant during a particular season, and for the market value of their crops upon harvest.

“The government also uses community radio to warn people in advance whenever the weather forecast detects floods,” Titiati told IPS in Durban.

In Kenya, pastoralist communities use mobile phones to determine the market value of their animals.

“We have rolled out a project in Isiolo district with an aim of reducing food insecurity among the communities,” Rahab Mburunga, the data officer at ActionAid International – Kenya, told IPS.

Through the project, information about the market value of various crops and livestock is sent as short messages to subscribers’ mobile phones.

The project has also given mobile phones to community members so that they can distribute the information to other villagers who might not have phones.

“We have tried it and it is working,” Mburunga said.

In February, the Kenyan government developed a National Climate Change Technology Action Plan. One of the main objectives of this was to explore technology transfer opportunities and to establish national technology innovation centres.

In Mozambique, the government and non-governmental organisations use mobile phones to warn residents in flood-prone areas about the possibility of floods to ensure the timely evacuation of people.

“We usually send short messages to particular community representatives so that it is broadcasted to the rest of the community regarding floods, delayed rainfall or any other necessary agricultural information,” said Josh Ogada, the communication expert at Oneworld, a regional environmental organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to a statement released by the International Telecommunication Union at COP 17, these technologies hold the key to adaptation, but they remain underutilised in most African countries.

“Today’s advanced technologies can transform social, industrial and business processes to effect the changes needed to achieve sustainability. But while the potential of ICTs to make a real difference is widely recognised by the technology community and government ICT ministries, it is still far from being understood and embraced by environmental lobby groups and policymakers,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Africa is calling for more funding to implement climate change adaptation programmes.

“We have enough resources for adaptation in Africa, and all we need is the technology transfer backed with scientific evidence. However, our people cannot fully exploit them if we do not have access to proper channels of financing such technology transfers for adaptation,” Mithika Mwenda, the coordinator for the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance told IPS. (END)

Tract of rainforest cleared by burning in the state of Acre, Brazil. Credit:Mario Osava/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 29 – (IPS) Organisations working with indigenous peoples living in forests say the United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) is just another way for big corporates to reap huge profits.

REDD+ has been touted as a global scheme to conserve forests, enhance carbon stocks and support sustainable forest management.

“It is a system where you pour a lot of money into forests that will attract powerful international investors who will make big profits,” warned Simone Lovera, managing director of the Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide network of more than 50 non-governmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She spoke during the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17), which is taking place in Durban, South Africa, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9.

Lovera does not contest that deforestation and forest degradation are key climate change culprits. Caused by agricultural expansion, conversion to pastureland, infrastructure development or destructive logging, they account for nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N., more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.

REDD+ is supposed to turn this around. Since it was started in 2005, the programme enables industrialised countries in the North to reward reductions of carbon emissions to nations in the South. It is basically a system of performance-based payments that are financed through global carbon markets. The U.N. predicts that finance for greenhouse gas emission reductions from REDD+ could reach up to 30 billion dollars per year. The money is supposed to go towards pro-poor development, help conserve biodiversity and secure vital ecosystem services.

But indigenous communities say this is not so. It was big, international forestry businesses that ultimately benefited from the carbon deals, not the locals who have lived in and off the forests for many generations. Instead, locals are kicked off their land to make space for large monoculture plantations aimed at offsetting carbon emissions in the north.

Lovera said there are many risks inherent to REDD+ that indigenous communities are unable to address because they lack access to information and education, such as forced, non-transparent contracts and land grabbing. What forest-dependent communities need instead, she argued, are national public policies that support sustainable forest management.

Lovera said the U.N. promise of the scheme generating billions of dollars annually was “a big fairytale”, a way of green washing. “There won’t be big carbon financing for REDD+. Carbon markets are collapsing. It’s a very risky scheme that is creating havoc all over the world,” she cautioned.

Her prediction is likely to be correct. A World Bank draft report, written for a G20 meeting in November and leaked to the Britsh Guardian newspaper in September, confirmed the trouble global carbon markets are in. “The value of transactions in the primary CDM market declined sharply in 2009 and further in 2010 … amid chronic uncertainties about future mitigation targets and market mechanisms after 2012,” the World Bank stated.

In the meantime, the U.N. continues to pump large amounts of finance into REDD+. Last month, for example, Nigeria’s national REDD+ programme received four million dollars in funding, which the U.N. says brought total funding in 14 countries worldwide to nearly 60 million dollars. The funds are aimed at increasing the capacity of national governments to implement carbon-saving strategies together with local groups, such as indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities.

“The U.N.-REDD programme’s support is invaluable because climate change is a global problem and the issues of REDD+, sustainable forest management and sustainable livelihoods cannot be handled by the country alone,” said Salisu Dahiru, national coordinator for REDD+ in Nigeria.

But organisations working with forest-dependent communities say the benefits for local people are minimal.

“We say very clearly ‘no’ to REDD+. Under it, people are being expelled from nature so that big industries can profit from carbon storage,” argued Winnie Overbeek, the international coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement, a non-governmental organisation based in Montevideo, Uruguay.

In Uganda, for example, a case was documented where 22,000 people were violently evicted from the Mubende and Kiboga districts earlier this year to make way for the United Kingdom-based New Forests Company to plant trees, to earn carbon credits and ultimately to sell timber. Similar incidents happened to indigenous peoples all over the world, said Overbeek.

“REDD+ is about making more profit, continuing pollution and disrespecting the rights of forest people all over the world. It’s about land grabbing,” he warned. “It’s time to stop thinking about REDD+ and start protecting local populations and their land rights.”

Marlon Santi, a member of the Quichua indigenous community that lives in the Amazon Region of Ecuador, said he has experienced first-hand how REDD+ took away people’s livelihoods. The scheme has led to mega forestry projects that exist to the detriment of local people.

“Forests have become a negotiating space to make money. They are used as business opportunities. That’s unacceptable to us,” said Santi. “REDD+ projects are hypocritical. We need real political solutions that benefit everyone.”

He hoped the negotiators at this year’s COP 17 will grant an open ear to his people’s needs.

Something like 50 steps are involved in making a bottle of tomato sauce. Credit: Nalisha Kalideen/IPS

Food production is one of the planet’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions producing global warming and will be the primary victim with yields falling as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift.

Those realities are not uppermost in the minds of most governments attending the international climate treaty meetings in Durban, South Africa this week according to the authors of new book addressing the challenges of climate, food, water and poverty.

“I’m astonished by how unaware policy makers are about the size of the carbon and ecological footprint of industrial agriculture,” said Michel Pimbert, a leading food and agriculture researcher at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Pimbert co-authors a new book called “Virtuous Circles” published last week in London. (Available as a free e-book)

“We’re inviting disaster with the current food production system,” Pimbert told IPS.

Some 193 nations are in Durban for COP 17 – negotiations for a new climate change treaty under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Industrialised food production wastes huge amounts of energy, water and other resources said Pimbert. Something like 50 steps are involved in making something as simple as a bottle of tomato sauce.

“The various bits that go into (tomato sauce) move huge distances. It makes no sense at all but agribusiness still makes money because they’ve rigged the system to work for them.”

Growing concerns about high food prices and rising numbers of hungry – more than one billion currently – has resulted in a number of high-profile “talking shops” – conferences and symposiums in the last two years said Pimbert. However, the small landholders or women who feed their families with small gardens that account for 85 percent of the world’s farms are rarely invited and their voices go unheard.

“A farmer in Mali told me that the leaders and experts in his own country are disdainful of village life and traditional knowledge. He said they have contempt for local farmers,” Pimbert said.

At big international conferences it is almost always elites talking to each other far removed from reality. Since these experts and professionals represent the status quo, they resist fundamental changes, he said.

“We need to hear other voices, the voices of local people.”

Without a major overhaul of the global food production system the multiple challenges humanity faces – climate change, food security, water shortages, loss of ecosystems and poverty – can never be addressed. That overhaul means a shift to locally-based productions systems that mimic natural cycles to produce food, energy, materials and clean water, writes Pimbert.

Natural systems are based on cycles like the water cycle. There is no “waste” in nature – waste is simply food for another species or converted into something that supports the cycle.

“Circular economy models that reintegrate food and energy production with water and waste management can also generate jobs and income in rural and urban areas,” said Pimbert. “This ensures that wealth created stays within the local and regional economy.”

“Virtuous Circles” arose out of a collaborative research effort with small landholders in Africa, China, Latin America and the Caribbean. The intent the book is to offer a vivid picture of a future that “spirals out” of the current ongoing crisis though sustainable and fair systems that provide food, energy, fibre housing and water, he said.

One example is a system that recycles food waste and chicken manure to feed a worm farm. The worms in turn feed the chickens and farmed fish whose bones are used as fertiliser in a market garden. Human waste via a compost toilet also enriches the garden, whose crops – together with the farmed fish and meat and eggs from the chickens – feed the people.

Havana, Cuba has a wide range of urban, ecological-based forms of agriculture that provides the city of two million people with half of its vegetables. Close to 70,000 hectares in and around the city are cultivated greatly reducing energy use for transport, storage and packaging. It is also a significant source of employment, helps reduce air pollution and improves the quality of life for residents the authors write.

Most sustainable food, water, energy and waste systems have been implemented in isolation. However, greater synergy can be obtained when ecological agriculture, renewable energy systems and sustainable water and waste management systems are all integrated. “This can contribute to food, water and energy security and also to financial security and poverty reduction through localised supply chains and fair trade initiatives,” the authors write.

This is not about going back in time. It is in fact a new, sophisticated approach that integrates traditional knowledge with the latest science. The purpose is to design climate- and planet-friendly systems that provide a better life for people, Pimbert said.

During the two weeks of climate talks in Durban there will be lots of talk about energy, food and water but only in a fragmented way. About 40 to 50 percent of greenhouse gases come from the food and agriculture system especially from industrial he said. Most studies only look at emissions from growing food but fail to include land use changes and deforestation, as well as emissions from food transport and processing. Addressing the food and agriculture carbon footprint can only be done by seeing food production, carbon emissions, water use, and livelihoods as an integrated system.

Existing policies have created the multiple crisis humanity faces largely because they are grounded on false assumptions that there are limitless sources of cheap energy and resources and endless capacity to dump wastes.

Among the needed changes the book recommends is an end to current policies encouraging the “mining of soils” to maximise yields and switch to those favouring the management of nutrient cycles.

Seed patent and intellectual property laws need reform to allow farmers to save seeds and have access to genetic resources. Global uniform standards for food safety that have all but eliminated small and local food processing need to shift to local standards for health and safety. Policies and practices in financial investment that favour land grabs need to change to policies that support local control and use over land.

“We can’t significantly reduce carbon emissions without addressing our food production systems in an integrated way,” Pimbert concluded. (END)

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 28 (IPS) – The European Union plan to save the Kyoto Protocol may meet its greatest obstacle in the developing world.

Durban represents a crucial decision-making point for the world’s fight against climate change. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

Abias Huongo, one of Angola’s negotiators, says developing country blocs of which it is part – including the Africa and Least Developed Countries groups – are not able yet to express support for a global legally binding deal.

“Our partners need to fulfill their responsibilities, and they are running away from their commitments,” he told IPS on the first day of the United Nations 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) - the annual international gathering convened to try to make progress on dealing with climate change in Durban, South Africa.

In a curtain-raiser press conference, the EU delegation – viewed as the most enthusiastic about a second commitment period – emphasised it was unwilling to commit unless the rest of the world agreed to a global climate deal.

“The problem is that Kyoto alone cannot tackle the climate challenges we all face,” the delegation’s Tomasz Chruszczow said, “We need 100 percent of global emissions covered by the framework, and 100 percent of those who are emitting.”

The EU wants to see an agreement finalised by 2015, and operational at the latest by 2020.

Durban represents a crucial decision-making point for the world’s fight against climate change – one which many civil society organisations and developing nations regard as a matter of life or death.

“It always seems impossible until it is done.” The words of Nelson Mandela were echoed by U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres at the opening plenary of COP 17.

In previous years, COPs have been plagued by frustration, mistrust and despair. But last year’s talks in Cancun managed to relieve some of the burden of post-Copenhagen disappointment.

This year, the more than 15,000 delegates have arrived on South Africa’s coast somewhat more hopeful about possibilities. But along with hope comes responsibility.

The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in December 2012, and in the absence of new commitments from developed countries, the globe will be left bereft of any legally-binding emissions framework.

Developing countries want Kyoto to succeed, Huongo said.

“We’re in Africa, and we don’t want it to die on our continent,” he added.

He said there would be discussions around a new legally-binding agreement, but outcomes remain opaque.

Huongo told IPS that the developed world must also be more flexible with its funding requirements to improve access to climate financing for the countries that need it the most. He said Angola also needs assistance with capacity building to combat its vulnerabilities.

Already, several countries – including Japan, Russia and Canada – have expressed their reticence at signing on a second time. National media reports that Canada is preparing to announce its retirement from the agreement after the COP 17 talks have been met with consternation.

Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists says this would be “the third slap in the face Canada’s given the international community”, after reneging on attempts to meet its commitments, and putting forward weak emissions targets at Copenhagen.

Meyer says Canada is attempting to avoid the scrutiny and criticism it would face if it left the Kyoto Protocol at COP 17, and is acting in bad faith by continuing to participate in the negotiations.

The developed-developing country divide is very much alive and kicking.

South African President Jacob Zuma referred to the plight of developing countries in his address at the opening ceremony, urging negotiators to strive to find solutions. But civil society groups including Greenpeace and Oxfam International said they were unhappy about the lack of ambition he expressed.

Faith groups of different religions gathered on the eve of the talks at a nearby stadium, to pray for concrete, fair and balanced outcomes from the negotiations. They were joined by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who called for the world to prepare itself for the battle against global warming.

Tutu criticised those countries refusing to sign the Kyoto. “God wants us to live in a garden, not a desert,” he told the crowd.

Figueres joined Tutu in addressing the rally, promising progress. “No matter what happens in Durban, it is going to be a step forward,” she said, “But let’s remember, it’s only a step… There will be another COP, and another one. This is a long process.”

The U.N. climate chief has emphasised the importance of looking beyond the Kyoto Protocol at the talks, highlighting the need to operationalise parts of the Cancun Agreements.

Amongst the concrete outcomes possible from Durban is the finalisation of the structure of a Green Climate Fund – a mechanism that will manage and account for climate funds, including the 100 billion dollars annually by 2020, promised by developed countries for adaptation and mitigation measures in developing nations.

Also achievable, Figueres believes, is making progress with the Adaptation Framework, also agreed in Cancun, and the improvement of technology transfer mechanisms, which will allow poorer countries to become more resilient with the onslaught of unpredictable and extreme weather events.

On the eve of the negotiations, unseasonably heavy rain left parts of Durban flooded, and resulted in the deaths of at least six people – a tragic, but possibly apt prelude to two weeks of discussions about climate change.

It is a message that developing countries want to make sure their richer counterparts hear: “We’re the ones who suffer. (END)

PARIS, Nov 28, 2011 (IPS) – When firefighters arrived to put out a blaze that was engulfing the home of Elise Inversin on the French island of Corsica, the 66-year-old grandmother told firemen to forget about her house and save a neighbouring 900-year-old Mastic tree. The house could be rebuilt, she said.

The damaged Saint-Jean Oak tree near Paris. Credit:A.D.McKenzie/IPS.

Inversin traveled from Corsica to Paris last week to receive a Tree of the Year prize on behalf of her beloved Mastic (or pistacia lentiscus), which beat 25 other trees in a competition to mark the closing weeks of the United Nations’ International Year of Forests in 2011.

“All I want now is for this tree to be recognised so that it can be protected for generations to come,” Inversin told IPS. “It has meant a lot to me and my family but it will outlast us, so the mayor’s office now has the responsibility to protect it.”

Launched by France’s first nature magazine ‘Terre Sauvage’ in association with the National Forests Office (ONF), the inaugural Tree of the Year contest asked the public to nominate the country’s most remarkable trees based on beauty, history, biodiversity and their significance to the people around them.

Individuals and community groups recommended hundreds of trees, in areas from Alsace to Martinique, and voters finally chose 26 to represent the regions of France. They included a massive 1,600-year-old yew in Normandy, and a sprawling, gnarled 1,400-year-old juniper that grows at an altitude of 1,100 meters in the Alps.

The organisers said they had to “suppress” false voting that sought to increase numbers through “computer pirating”, but a jury selected the Mastic as the overall winner.

The jury also gave a special “prix du public” to another tree: a 200-year-old, 18-metre-high Pedunculate Oak that grows in Brittany. And organisers of the contest welcomed a “guest honoree” as well, a thousand- year-old oak of Palestine, known as the Oak of Sharafat. Photos of all these trees now adorn a part of the fence around the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) here.

The competition was not just a green beauty pageant, however. Its aim was to highlight the importance of trees in the world, and the “alarming” rate at which forests are disappearing.

According to the United Nations, about 13 million hectares of forests are disappearing each year around the globe, mainly in tropical regions. The livelihoods of some 1.6 billion people are at stake, and some of the 300 million people that call forests home could become environmental refugees.

Deforestation also contributes to global warming, being responsible for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, says the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The FAO says that South America and Africa had the highest net annual loss of forests from 2000 to 2010, with four and 3.4 million hectares respectively. In Africa, the destruction of forests has led to reduced rainfall, contributing to the current drought. The FAO has started several replanting projects in an attempt to make land fertile again.

In Asia, ambitious replanting programmes in countries such as India and China have slowed deforestation, but the rate is still nearly 3 percent annually, the FAO says. In Malaysia forests are disappearing at nearly three times the combined Asian rate.

In France, forests cover more than 30 percent of the land surface, and the mission of the National Forests Office is to protect these regions as well as those in the country’s overseas territories such as French Guiana, Réunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe. It’s not an easy task, says Hervé Gaymard, president of ONF’s board of directors.

“The work for the sustainable management of these forests is very varied and wide-ranging because there’s really nothing in common in the management of forests in mainland France and in Guiana, for instance,” he told IPS.

He said the ONF was active “on the diplomatic front” in the protection of tropical forests, fighting against the trade in “Africa’s precious wood” especially in the Congo basin.

Gaymard said deforestation was not a real problem in France. But some of the country’s old trees are at risk, say environmentalists. For instance, in the Forest of Compiègne, about 50 kilometres from Paris, there is a 750-year-old oak tree known as the Chêne de Saint-Jean that has a huge gaping hole in its trunk. The hole was reportedly caused by a fire that a group of scouts started a few years ago to get rid of wasps.

“We try to do the best we can, but we cannot have a policeman beside every tree to protect it,” Gaymard told IPS. “Trees sometimes get hurt through malfeasance.”

Inversin of Corsica says that protecting the world’s forests starts with seeing and respecting individual trees. “You have to see the trees to save the forests,” she said. “When I told the firemen to save (the Mastic), it was a spontaneous reaction. I didn’t have time to think about it. But I know how many lives this tree has touched.” (END)

Water stands in the roads of Bwaise after a light morning rainfall. The urban slum’s drainage system is unable to handle even slight rains. Credit:Andrew Green/IPS

The gardens around Regina Bayiyana’s home in Bwaise keep washing away. Her husband and all five of her children died after long illnesses, leaving her to raise 15 grandchildren on her own in her one- bedroom house. The crops she grew in the gardens – bananas, sweet potatoes and yams – were her main source of both food and income.

Now she and her family have cut back to one meal a day and there is no longer money for school fees.

“Ten years back this used to be a good place,” Bayiyana said. “Now we can’t plant… The water is entering our homes whenever it rains. All my property was washed away by the rains.”

In hilly Kampala, Bwaise is a low-lying area that was settled in the early 1980s, according to Florence Masuliya, a programme officer at Tusitukirewamu Group – a women’s empowerment organisation based in the slum. Many of the people who moved there were refugees from violence-ridden areas around the country.

Though it was never a desirable community, people were able to set up shops and cultivate enough food to get by, Masuliya said. At least, until rain patterns in the capital city began to change.

“It used to be that November and December was the rainy season,” she said. “But right now, since January, we’ve been experiencing rain, rain, rain. I think it came due to climate change.”

A 2008 Oxfam International report, written with assistance from district officials in Uganda, said many of the changes to the country’s climate – including “heavy and violent” rains – were consistent with global warming effects.

Though weather patterns in Uganda have always been unpredictable, the authors said the recently inconsistent rainfall combined with the country’s continuing deforestation could increase risk of floods, as the soil is unable to absorb as much water. And the report predicted that the entire region could expect to become even wetter in the future.

A woman feeds her child in Bwaise – a slum on the outskirts of Kampala. She sits among the remains of local gardens that have been destroyed by floods. Credit:Andrew Green/IPS

The water running down from the surrounding developed communities into Bwaise emphasises the report’s finding. Because there was little official planning that went into the development of the community, the drainage systems that are in place are too few and too rudimentary to handle the amount of water being dumped on the neighbourhood. Instead, it just runs through the houses and shops.

Many buildings are beginning to rot or crumble. The rains at night are especially treacherous, with floods catching families unaware and sometimes drowning small children. And the water that remains, standing stagnant on roads and in gardens, has been a breeding ground for diseases like cholera and typhoid.

Though she was not ready for the floods when they first started coming, Bayiyana has now learned to prepare for the rain. When she hears it coming at night, she piles the family’s three mattresses on top of each other and instructs her grandchildren to clamber on top to avoid the water and the snakes that sometime wash into their home.

But they have not managed to completely avoid the contaminated water. Several of Bayiyana’s grandchildren recently broke out in skin rashes and she had to take them to a nearby hospital for treatment.

She would like to move away, but “no one would buy this land. If I sold it, I would get very little money.”

Though the rains are indiscriminate, the group they have ended up hitting hardest are Bwaise’s mothers and grandmothers, said Florence Kasule, the programme manager for Africa Women’s Economic Policy Network. Her organisation has been working to raise awareness of the problems in the community.

She said that since the rains came, men have been moving from the community to look for steadier income, because the flooding had made work unreliable. Most left their wives and children behind.

“Women cannot easily shift because of their children,” Kasule said. “Nobody can accommodate three or four children.” In the absence of their husbands, most women are left to look for whatever work they can find, sometimes selling food outside bars at night or hocking dried fish on the roadside.

Susan Nakayiza’s husband left her to raise their 12 children alone. She said her family was not prepared for the rains. There had been no official warning and she had no way to know that the previously normal rains would turn to floods, so when they started in 2008, they destroyed nearly everything she owns.

To make ends meet, she is now running a clothes-washing business out of her house, which is cramped with piles of her neighbours’ dirty laundry.

Her children help out with the business, taking orders and washing clothes in their cramped yard. But she still had to pull the younger children out of school because money was too tight. And business is getting worse as more and more people move away.

Like Bayiyana, Nakayiza dreams of leaving, “but I don’t have the money to rent somewhere,” she said.

Masuliya’s organisation is looking for funding to support the local women who are left behind. They recently facilitated a grant from the United States Embassy through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that provides money for women to grow mushrooms, which they can eat or sell.

Bayiyana is one of the participants. Because her gardens are flooded, Masuliya is letting the grandmother cultivate land behind the Tusitukirewamu Group’s headquarters.

Masuliya has also been working closely with local officials to encourage them to develop a better drainage system in Bwaise to draw water away from residents’ homes. She has been promised that the next year will bring a new system, funded by the World Bank.

And local officials have also gotten involved. The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has held workshops in the district to encourage people to properly dispose of their garbage, so it doesn’t get caught in the floods, according to Janet Massazi, a KCCA community development officer.

They have also been holding official disaster preparedness workshops in Bwaise and the surrounding communities over the last three years. It’s not a new drainage system, but it is an effort to raise awareness and prepare people for the floods.

Bayiyana said she is grateful for the efforts others have made to help the people left in Bwaise, but she does not expect things to really change in her lifetime.

“My message to the government is: Support these people,” she said. “I myself am a widow. I can’t do anything. I need to get support from somewhere.”

(END)

KATHMANDU, Nov 20, 2011 (IPS) – Chungda Sherpa, a former herder from eastern Nepal, has a warning tale ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Durban.

At World Wildlife Fund-Japan’s ‘Climate Witness’ programme in Osaka and Tokyo this month, to apprise communities around the world how climate change is threatening lives and livelihoods, the 48-year-old described how the glacier on Mt Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world, is shrinking rapidly.

“When I was young … I was told it was one of the largest non-polar glaciers in the world,” he said. “But it has retreated now and I can see glacial lakes forming, which could grow larger over time and become GLOFs (glacial lake outburst floods), posing a threat to our lives and property.”

With global average temperature increasing by approximately 0.75 degrees Celsius in the last century, its most visible and direct effect can be seen on mountains, says Pradeep Mool, remote sensory expert at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

“The health of glaciers indicates the state of the climate,” says Mool. “In 1957, when Swiss geologist Dr Toni Hagen took the photograph of the Gangapurna glacier on the northern slope of Mt Annapurna, it lay over the Manang valley. But recent photos show the glacier is now just a hanging strip. We have witnessed the change in our lifetime.”

The shrinking and retreating of the Himalayan glaciers – which provide life-giving water to over a billion people – became visible after early 1970. Three decades later, the phenomenon accelerated, resulting in the formation of moraine-dammed glacial lakes which are swelling ominously.

There are over 20,000 glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas and a GLOF risk assessment report by ICIMOD in 2010 compiled a list of 179 potentially dangerous ones in China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. In addition, experts have identified another 25 in Bhutan.

So far, China has recorded the highest number of GLOFs (29), followed by Nepal (22), Pakistan (9) and Bhutan (4).

“There is a dearth of data,” says Mool. “For instance, people talk of cold floods in India and Myanmar (Burma), which could have been GLOFs; even some satellite images indicate that. But there is no recorded literature.”

The geography as well as geopolitics of the region comes in the way of extensive surveys and information sharing.

The high altitude of glacial lakes and glaciers – 4,800 m above sea level and higher – makes them virtually inaccessible. Also, many of them are near international boundaries or in disputed territory, like the Siachen glacier near India’s boundary with Pakistan, and Arunachal Pradesh state in India, part of which is claimed by China.

The disputes make them sensitive areas, often out of bounds for scientific surveys.

Political instability and ensuing violence, like in Afghanistan and Pakistan, also obstruct research. But despite the difficulties, ICIMOD has now for the first time conducted additional survey of GLOFs in Afghanistan and Burma.

The new inventory of nearly 1,700 lakes in the two countries, done mostly by satellite imaging, will be tabled in Durban during 17th conference of the parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban.

Though most of the governments in the region realise the need to combat climate change and have individually formulated national action plans as well as laws on disaster management, there is still little collective effort.

For instance, on Nov. 19, Bhutan hosted a ‘Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas’ to address climate change impacts on bio-diversity, food and energy security and the natural freshwater systems of the Himalayas.

However, only India, Nepal and Bangladesh participated, besides the host country, raising eyebrows at the non-participation of China and Pakistan.

“The meeting was intended only for countries from the eastern Himalayas,” says Krishna Gyawali, secretary at Nepal’s environment ministry. “We have to start somewhere and then gradually expand.”

However, it is felt that India’s uneasy relationship with China and Pakistan could have kept them out.

“Some of Asia’s major rivers like the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Mekong flow through more than one country,” says Mool. “Water-induced disasters spill over borders.

“Ten of the GLOF devastations experienced by Nepal originated in Tibet. The effect is long-lived. Besides the immense cost of rebuilding infrastructure in mountainous regions, there is the possibility of increasing landslide and avalanche. So, regional cooperation is a must.”

What is promising is that some of these countries are working with multilateral donor agencies to lessen GLOF risks, create an early warning system in case of floods, and devise optional livelihood means for displaced people.

According to Martin Krause, team leader at UNDP Asia-Pacific regional centre’s environment and energy division, the agency is engaged in projects in Bhutan and Pakistan with a new one to start in Nepal next year.

In Bhutan, it is focusing on the Buddhist kingdom’s two most vulnerable areas, the Punakha-Wangdi and Chamkhar valleys, home to 10 percent of the country’s population and important infrastructure.

The projects are co-financed by the UNFCC, Least Developed Countries Fund and the Austrian government. UNDP hopes that a component of the project – reducing the water level of Lake Thorthormi, ranked among Bhutan’s most dangerous glacial lakes – will provide valuable experience to other countries like China, Pakistan, India and Chile

In Pakistan, UNDP is working with the government to create an institution to address GLOF risks and other issues affecting communities and livelihoods in northern Pakistan and help them respond.

Ironically, though Nepal remained closed to the outside world till the 1950s and was affected by a 10-year communist insurgency from 1996, it remains the most open to surveys, research and disaster mitigation projects.

Next year, UNDP will start a many-layered disaster risk management programme in Nepal that, among other things, will seek to reduce human and material losses from GLOFs in two mountain districts: Dolakha and Solukhumbu.

Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mt Everest, has been using the iconic peak to draw global attention to the risks faced by its mountain community.

“In 2009, the then government of Nepal called a cabinet meeting at Kala Patthar (a 5,242 m high plateau at the foot of Mt Everest),” says Ghana S. Gurung, conservation programme director at World Wildlife Fund Nepal.

“Later, at COP 15 in Copenhagen he gave rocks from Mt Everest to U.S. President Barack Obama and the then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to emphasise how the peak’s snow cover was receding. It succeeded in drawing global attention to the peril faced by the world’s highest mountain due to climate change.”

(END)

NAIROBI , Nov 18, 2011 (IPS) – When donor-funded horticultural projects failed in Kalacha village at the edge of the Chalbi Desert in North Eastern Province, Kenya, the local pastoralist community proposed their own idea, which turned out to be the solution to their problems.

“When horticulture was introduced by a host of non-governmental organisations five years ago, we really got excited because it was going to be an alternative to our pastoralist lifestyle that is already threatened by the changing climatic conditions.

“But before long, we discovered that all was useless because monkeys and other animals fed on the crops,” said Abdi Tuya, a resident of Kalacha.

However, after consultation with community members, the Kenya Arid and Semi Arid Lands Research Programme (KASAL), which is being implemented by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), discovered that the community already had a viable idea for a project.

“They insisted that they wanted to use the water and the land to grow grass to fatten (their) malnourished goats and camels, especially during the drought,” Dr. David Miano, the head of KASAL told IPS.

The North Eastern Province is generally an arid region, which has always been dry. But in the wake of the changing climate, the situation has worsened with erratic and unpredictable rainfall.

The government estimates that over 50 million domestic animals in the region are at risk of dying, while more than 1.4 million people are in dire need of relief food due to the worsening drought.

But residents of Kalacha proposed that water from a rare fresh-water desert spring be used to irrigate indigenous grass, which could be used as fodder. “This forced our scientists to start a new research (project) to identify the different types of indigenous grasses that are drought tolerant, and which have sufficient nutritional values for animal fattening purposes,” said Miano.

And now two years on, farmers can point to thousands of animals that would have succumbed in the recent drought in the region, had they not had the means to feed them.

“Grass farming is the best thing that happened to me. All the malnourished animals are brought back home from the pastoralists’ grazing grounds for fattening. In the past year, I have been able to save up to 80 goats that were succumbing to the drought,” said Tuya, who owns 450 goats and 15 camels.

Earlier the only solution would have been to slaughter the animals.

Home grown successes, like this one in Kalacha, has climatologists and African think tanks saying that an African solution is the only way that Africa can adapt to changing climatic conditions. The call comes ahead of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Durban, South Africa from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9.

“We have come to terms with the reality that however successful a project can be in one area, it does not mean that it will succeed in a different area, even if the climatic and geographical features are the same,” said Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Projects with a huge impact in Mongolia, for example, may not succeed in Africa,” Pachauri told IPS.

Experts say that African research institutions and centres of excellence must scale up Africa-focused climate research to improve the science base and reduce prediction uncertainties in user-relevant climate variables.

“In this regard, research should be relevant to local needs, (it should be) more practical and policy driven,” said Pachauri.

This comes after several climate change adaptation projects in Africa have proved irrelevant to local needs.

Examples include the introduction of Prosopis juliflora, a shrub or small tree native to Mexico, South America and the Caribbean, which was supposed to provide forest cover in dry-land areas, but turned out to be a menace.

In Ethiopia, studies indicate that the shrub has had a negative impact on people’s food security and livelihoods, especially in the Afar region in northern Ethiopia, where it has colonised arable lands.

“Though we have different uses of the tree, which include fuel, fencing, construction, and charcoal making, we would be happy if someone taught us how to eradicate Woyane hara (the local name for prosopis),” Ato Kebele, a resident from Afar who works in the country’s capital Addis Ababa, told IPS.

“We would prefer to grow indigenous trees instead of this ‘enemy’ (shrub),” said Kebele.

In Kenya, residents of Baringo County in the Rift Valley region took the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to court in 2007. They claimed that after the organisation introduced prosopis, also known as Mathenge, to the area it colonised their farms, and affected the teeth of goats that fed on the pods. They produced a toothless goat as evidence.

Following the case, the court declared the tree poisonous and ordered the government to destroy it and set up a commission to recommend the level of damages payable as compensation to the community. However, Alexander Alusa, the climate change policy advisor in the Kenyan prime minister’s office, warns that even after African solutions are adapted to African climate change problems, policies need to be cohesive in order for them to work effectively.

“In Kenya, for example, the government that allocated people land in the Mau forest through the Ministry of Lands is ironically the same government that strives to protect forests through the Ministry of Environment. But if the policies were harmonised, (this) confusion would not have occurred,” he told IPS.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

(END)

Tashi Jamtsho. Credit:Vanya Walker-Leigh/IPS. Buy this picture

The first three nations also participated in the 28-nation Climate Vulnerable Forum in Dhaka, Bangladesh last Monday.

While the UN climate change negotiations launched in 1995 and resuming for their 17th annual session in Durban in South Africa on Nov. 28 have so far failed to generate sufficient action to slow global climate change, the four East Himalayan nations are already beginning to feel its destructive impacts. The summit aims to enable them to face related problems jointly.

“The summit is the culmination of over two years’ work by senior officials from the four participating nations,” Dr. Tashi Jamtsho, the young Bhutanese civil servant who is executive secretary of the Bhutan Climate Summit Secretariat told IPS in an interview at his office here.

“The summit has three main goals,” he explained. “They are to adopt a roadmap for adapting to climate change, to highlight the issues we are facing internationally, and to create partnerships, networks and relationships to share information, experience and skills. Summit partners are the government of Denmark, the World Wildlife Fund, the MacArthur Foundation and ICIMOD – the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.

“We have approached the climate change challenge holistically, focusing on four interrelated key topics – food security, protection of freshwater systems, energy security (including development of renewable sources) and the protection and sustainable use of biodiversity. Technical meetings have been held on each topic with the four nations submitting national reports on each sector. This work underpins the Regional Framework of Action and related budget formally adopted by senior officials from our four nations who met here on Oct. 23.”

The documents are being reviewed by a meeting of ministers Nov. 18, then transmitted for formal endorsement by the prime ministers’ summit the following day.

A slew of scientific studies including the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) show that over the past two decades the Himalayan region’s rainfall and weather patterns have become increasingly erratic, putting biodiversity, wildlife, soils, water resources and thus food production and rural livelihoods under growing strain.

The southern and eastern flanks of the massive mountain range are the ‘watertower’ for over 1.3 billion Indians, Nepalis, Bangladeshis and Bhutanese. Rising temperatures have set off an accelerating process which is shrinking the huge glaciers. If continued, ever growing quantities of ‘melt water’ could set off catastrophic Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs), as thousands of mountain lakes start to burst their banks. Further ahead looms the dreadful prospect of permanent drought – as the local climate dries out.

The Regional Framework of Action however will need to be converted into actual policies and measures, but civil servants are still negotiating on implementation mechanisms to follow up the summit decisions, including whether, and if so, where to locate a permanent secretariat. Agreement at the summit is not certain, Tashi admits. “In that case there should be a provision in the summit declaration for further consultations.”

Although civil society will not be admitted to the high-level meetings, a six-day parallel event Nov. 14-19 features exhibitions and seminars by regional environmental NGOs as well as a youth rally organised by ICIMOD.

Dago Tschering, research officer at Bhutan’s only environmental NGO, the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature, told IPS that “NGOs from the four countries have made important contributions to developing each country studies and positions on the four summit topics. We have also worked collaboratively on this through our membership of Climate Action Network South Asia – the regional node of the 700 strong global network of NGOs campaigning on climate change since 1990. We expect our roles to be enhanced by the summit outcome.”

While heads of several leading UN agencies as well as European Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard have declined the invitation to attend the summit, high-level representation of major donor countries is still hoped for. Donor support is seen as a critically essential input to fulfilling the roadmap’s many goals – though the weak decisions on climate change finance emerging from the G20 summit in Cannes on Nov. 3-4 are hardly encouraging.

Nor is the information emerging at the Dhaka Forum about donor aid being ‘recycled’ as climate finance, instead of additional allocations being made, in accordance with agreements on a three-year, 30 billion dollar ‘fast start financing’ commitment made at the 2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. In his speech to the forum UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged that “governments must find ways — now — to mobilise resources up to the 100 billion dollars per annum pledged. An empty shell is not sufficient.”

He was referring to the decision taken at last year’s UN climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico, to set up a Green Climate Fund whose resources would reach 100 billion dollars a year by 2020. The Fund’s functioning and financing will be discussed at the Durban conference.

The Durban conference will be informed of the Himalayan summit results, says Tashi. “We plan to showcase the outcome at a high-level event,” he told IPS, and then adding with true civil service caution, “if the outcome is really successful.” (END)

CAPE TOWN, Nov 18, 2011 (IPS) – In Africa, where urbanisation will be one of the major developments over the next few decades, it will be key for cities to figure out how to handle rapid urban expansion and much-needed economic growth, while creating more environmentally-friendly cities and reducing their carbon footprint at the same time.

Most of the world’s GDP is generated in cities, and urban centres are the powerhouses of the economy, the places from where innovation and change originates. But because of that, they also cause the most pollution and environmental damage.

“Cities are responsible for more than 75 percent of greenhouse gases, because they are the places where most people live,” said Marlene Laros, policy and strategy advisor for ICLEI South Africa, a global association of local governments committed to sustainable development.

Laros spoke at the opening of the Inspiring Change conference aimed at tackling how African cities can respond to climate change, which is being held in Cape Town, South Africa, from Nov. 18 to 20.

“By 2050, 60 percent of Africa’s population will be living in cities, up from currently 40 percent. That is a fact we cannot change. Our challenge is how to embrace urbanisation,” said Laros. She suggested this could be done by integrating climate change with development and economic policies, so that poverty, employment creation and environmental issues can be tackled at the same time rather than in isolation.

Climate change is highly interconnected with the environment, economy, politics, poverty, food security, access to water and the built environment, among other factors. If Africans want to create greener cities, they will need to consider all of them, said Laros.

One major hurdle to creating greener cities is, however, that African nations will need to double their infrastructure by 2050 to service their rapidly growing urban centres. That will mean major construction – with the construction industry being one of the biggest polluters.

“The building sector consumes 30 to 45 percent of global energy production. We use six to eight percent of global fossil fuel demand to build. Those costs are very high and very unsustainable,” warned independent environmental consultant Robert Zipplies. “We need to find different and more environmentally-friendly ways of building our cities.”

This will not be an easy plan to realise, however, since economic development continues to take precedence over the environment on a continent where poverty alleviation and employment creation are the top priorities of every government. So building parking garages has the highest commercial value in African cities like Cape Town, not creating communal spaces or parks, noted Laros.

Due to spatial planning practices and market forces that favour the wealthy, Africa’s urban poor – the majority of households – are increasingly vulnerable to the potential effects of climate change. This threatens the resilience of urban communities to climate change all over the continent.

City planners would therefore be in an ideal position to contribute to the fight against climate change, but in Africa, they have been slow to get involved. Few municipal strategies analyse and monitor hazard and vulnerability factors or contain risk assessments of the present and future effects of climate change on urban areas.

Bringing down a city’s carbon footprint would have many positive spin-offs, such as a healthier population, argued Leonie Joubert, a South African environmental writer, who has authored several books on climate change.

“African cities are spread wide and thin, which means it takes time and money to move goods. They are designed to be carbon heavy. Every calorie that comes into the city requires an ecosystem service to produce that food and transport it,” she explained.

As a result, food transported into expansive urban centres has a high carbon footprint, while generally being less fresh and highly processed. “Cities make us fat and sick,” Joubert noted. “We have an obesity epidemic in Africa, combined with severe malnutrition. And at the root of this lie significant climate problems.”

She believes one solution would be to densify African cities to create better scales of economy. “It would be easier and cheaper to introduce public transport systems, which would mean fewer cars and more people walking. Denser cities would also reduce the cost of healthy food and its carbon footprint, because it would be cheaper to transport it into town,” Joubert explained. She encouraged citizens to start demanding greener cities at the municipal level.

Climate change is not an issue for national governments to deal with alone, as its actual effects are particularly felt by people at local government level. Local governments are the closest to where the consequences of climate change will pan out and thus best positioned to build resilient cities, while avoiding major setbacks in hard-won economic and social development.

Joubert believes every African urbanite can play a role: “As an ordinary person, national government policy feels impenetrable, but on a city level, it’s so much easier to mobilise as a community.” (END)