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.

Continue Reading

Zukiswa Zimela spoke to MARCIA LEVAGGI, manager of the Adaptation Fund Board

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) - The issue of money is still a substantial part of the negotiations at 17^thConference of Parties in Durban, South Africa. IPS spoke to Marcia Levaggi, manager of the Adaptation Fund Board, on the importance of ensuring that developing countries have the funds to deal with the effects of climate change.

Marcia Levaggi, manager of the Adaptation Fund Board. Credit: Zukiswa ZImela/IPS

Continue Reading

Credit: Yanethe Gamboa/IPS

Joshua Kyalimpa Interviews JOAO SAMUEL CAHOLO, Deputy Executive Secretary, Southern African Development Community (SADC)

DURBAN, Dec — The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has devised a plan to mainstream water resources management. On the sidelines of the U.N. climate change conference taking place in Durban, there have been efforts to establish water as an agenda item in its own right in climate change negotiations.

Water experts say this will lead to greater focus on developing policy, and attract more resources into the water sector through adaptation programmes.

Q: SADC has been part of efforts to get water into the United Nations on the agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – thus far without success.

A: Questions of climate change are matters of global responsibility, so we shall continue with the issue. There is the Rio+20 conference next year,  there is also COP 18 next year: we should continue to discuss within our constituencies and plan for how the issues of water can be brought to the larger agenda of climate change.

Q: What is SADC’s next step?
A: We already have political consensus, enshrined in the SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses, so the political commitment in SADC is already there. The next step is for us to establish real institutions to address the issues at the national level and also develop transboundary  water resources.

Q: But how are you going to achieve this when water is not mainstreamed? Where will you get the financial resources to have develop water resources?

A: For us, money is not actually the issue. It’s a question of a commitment to implement what we have agreed upon, because money can be found in different ways. It can come from various international sources, but also it can come from our own treasuries and SADC has best practices in this regard.

Q: What are you doing to raise the general awareness of water issues in the region?

A: As SADC, we have the protocol which recognises the need for transboundary water resources to be managed jointly. That program is being implemented. I don’t want to say that SADC is singling out just one issue with water, but we are confident it will be accorded due attention in future negotiations.

The UNFCCC has a consensus process to reach agreements on climate change, which, in effect, could lead to countries exercising a veto to stop progress. IPSs Stephen Leahy asks Alden Myer, director of strategy & policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, if the process could ever work.

By Andre Marais – Amandla Magazine*

DURBAN, Dec 5 – (TerraViva) Durbanite Prevan Chetty is the frontman of a rock outfit called Dismantling The Sky. This quintet combines heavy metal, classical Indian music, grunge, and R&B with an ecological message and an anti-consumerist sensibility.

The band’s distinctive sound is partly due to their use of instruments rescued from the scrap heap, such as reconditioned guitars as well as instruments built from scratch using materials like tins and plastic. Chetty dubs it “recycled metal”, suggesting the band’s fresh new take on heavy metal classics by groups such as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin – which he credits as major influences. Continue Reading

Busani Bafana interviews to KANAYO F. NWANZE, President, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 4 (IPS) – The combined effects of ballooning populations, poor productivity and threatened water resources present fresh pressures on agriculture to deliver food, money and livelihoods in Africa.

The food system needs urgent reform in the face of climate change which accelerating the speed of change on the farms and on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Continue Reading

Busani Bafana speaks to the former head of the former Head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) OzonAction programme, RAJENDRA SHENDE.

Continue Reading

Ann-Kathrin Schneider

Kristin Palitza speaks to ANN-KATHRIN SCHNEIDER, climate change coordinator of the German public body for environmental protection BUND, about the current state of the negotiations and the chances that COP17 will end with firm, binding commitments.

Continue Reading

Hans-Holger Rogner of the IAEA

More than 190 countries have sent delegates to Durban, South Africa, to take part in COP 17 and thrash out a new deal on energy and climate change. One of the options to reduce carbon emissions, however unpopular, is nuclear power. Tinus de Jager asked Hans-Holger Rogner, of International Atomic Energy Agency, about the current negative global attitude towards atomic energy.