A Moroccan fog-harvesting project was awarded a UN Climate Change prize in Bonn, Germany.

The system, developed and installed by Morocco based NGO Dar Si Hmad, is said to be the largest fog-water harvesting system in the world.

Thanks to the project, more than 400 people from isolated villages on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Morocco have access to running water.

This has been of enormous value to the village women who used to spend more than three hours a day walking to fetch water from far-away wells.

Dr. Jamila Bargach, Executive Director of Dar Si Hamd, said: “Berber women bore the laborious task of carrying water from distant wells – a burden that greatly limited opportunities for young women.”

Fog harvesting utilises a specialised mesh that traps water droplets from the fog.

The condensed trapped droplets then fall into a container, which slowly fills up to form a significant reserve of water.

Dar Si Hmad’s project involves 600 square meters of mesh netting, seven storage reservoirs, six solar panels and more than 10,000 meters of piping.

Bargach said: “The fog project should not simply be reduced to the story of technical and success: there are more complex and intertwined stories to tell... One narrative is that of curiosity and aspiration; one of motivation and quest for dignity; and one of rigour and determination.”

The system has received the prize under the Momentum for Change Women for Results focus area for providing a sustainable water source to combat the effects of desertification.

UNFCCC Spokesman Nick Nuttal said: “It is impressive to see so many original and creative ways to tackle climate change... It’s also great to see a winner from Morocco, this year’s host of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.”

This article was originally posted here.

The developing world and emerging markets are among the most exciting places for climate policy and innovation, according to a former White House official who advised the Obama administration in the run-up to the COP20 summit in Lima, Peru.

Progress in closing the global workplace gender gap is slowing dramatically, according to a World Economic Forum study, with a notable exception in Rwanda, a country still emerging from the aftermath of genocide that has become the world's leader on equal pay.

The Geneva-based body pushed back its projection for economic parity between women and men by 53 years after finding chronic imbalances in salaries and workforce representation had reversed the pace of progress since a peak in 2013. It now projects economic equality to be reached in 2186, another 170 years off.

"Progress towards parity in the key economic pillar has slowed dramatically with the gap now larger than at any point since 2008," WEF said when releasing its 2016 Global Gender Report on Wednesday.

Last year, women around the world earned just over half as much as their male counterparts despite working more hours, and participated in the labor market at two-thirds the rate of men, its authors found.

While high-income countries showed the narrowest gender gaps, low-income countries on average performed just as well as their upper-middle-income peers. Differences were more pronounced on a regional basis, with even high-income nations from the Middle East and North Africa scoring low.

NORDIC COUNTRIES MOST SUCCESSFUL

Nordic countries once again topped the list -- with Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden ranked highest on gender equality.

Rwanda -- a low-income country -- moved up to fifth place, with more women than men in its labor force and the world's highest share of female members of parliament at 64 percent.

Rwandan women earned 88 cents to men's dollar for similar work, WEF said, making it the country with the highest degree wage equality.

While gender gaps in education as well as health and survival have nearly closed overall, the Swiss non-profit group said inequalities in economic participation and political empowerment remain "wide open" around the world. Women have less than a quarter the political representation attained by men and 59 percent of the economic participation and opportunity.

"The number of women in senior positions also remains stubbornly low, with only four countries in the world having equal numbers of male and female legislators, senior officials and managers, despite the fact that 95 countries now have as many - if not more - women educated at university level."

Each year the Geneva-based body gathers politicians and business executives at a week-long summit in the resort town of Davos. With a host of factors holding women back from top positions worldwide, WEF has said female representation in Davos remains too low.

This year just 18 percent of participants were women.

This article was originally posted here.

Just 38% of US schoolchildren were taught that climate change is linked to fossil fuels, with many teachers spending less than an hour a year on the subject.

Nearly two-thirds of schoolchildren in the US are taught lessons on climate change that do not rise to the level of a sound science education, according to new research on Thursday. The finding provide new evidence on the source of the confusion and denial surrounding global warming in American public life.

In the first national survey of classroom science teachers, researchers found there was short shrift given to the teaching of climate change in public middle and high schools in all 50 states.

The survey of 1,500 teachers, published in Science on Thursday, found most pupils spend only an hour or two in the course of an academic year learning about climate change in middle and high school – and much of what they are taught is confusing or simply wrong.

Only 38% of American schoolchildren were taught lessons that adhere to the scientific consensus that climate change is largely the result of the burning of fossil fuels, the researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the National Centre for Science Education found.

Some 30% of teachers spent less than an hour on climate change during the last academic year, the researchers found. In higher grades, much of that time was spent going over old material without introducing more advanced material.

Some 7% attributed recent warming to natural causes – which is simply wrong – while 4% of teachers avoided talking about the cause of climate change. Another 22% said their lessons mentioned the scientific consensus – but also that there was significant disagreement among scientists, which is also incorrect. 

The findings suggest that younger generations – those most likely to experience the havoc and stress of climate change in their lifetimes – are not getting the education to best serve their needs.

Eric Plutzer, a political scientist at Penn State, and a co-author of the study, said: “We don’t think that is good preparation for citizens to be effective in advocating for policies that are going to be critical to their own generation and their children and grandchildren.”

The lack of teaching and the mixed messages about climate change leave schoolchildren more susceptible to disinformation about climate change spread by political or corporate interests once they enter adulthood, the researchers said.

The energy industry has spent millions funding climate denial and supporting Republicans in Congress who deny global warming is occurring.

Indeed, the researchers found that many of the teachers themselves were confused about the causes of climate change. Only 30% of middle school teachers and 45% of high school teachers said that human activity was the main driver of climate change, the researchers found.

Their findings are in line with other studies which have found systemic failings in the teaching of climate change. A Stanford University study of science textbooks used in California public schools last year found misleading material.

Unlike other, more informal surveys, the researchers did not give much weight to the idea that the teachers faced political and parental pressure to avoid teaching the science. But politics remained a factor in how teachers decided to teach the material, Plutzer said. 

“Politics intrude in the same form it takes in the public debate, with teachers whether consciously or not aligning in much the same way as political groups do outside the classroom.”

However, the researchers said it would be unfair to heap the blame on teachers.

Climate science was not yet part of the testable curriculum for many schools – which means there were fewer guidelines available to teachers.

That also meant that teachers were inclined to spend more time teaching other material that students would encounter on standardized tests.

Some of the teachers were also caught out by the rapid advances in climate science. Fewer than half of teachers reported receiving any training in climate science at university, said Josh Rosenau, policy director for the National Center for Science in Education and a co-author. “The scientific community has not made sure that teachers are kept up to date with those advances,” he said, adding that there should be continuing education programs on climate change for teachers.

This article was originally posted on the Guardian.

A new report makes a strong bottom-line case for more earth-friendly farming — and eating — practices. A more sustainable approach to our world’s food production could be a massive economic boon, a new report out this month claims.

CREDIT: LARRY FRENCH/AP IMAGES FOR DUPONT

Our planet has a very long way to go toward building a food system that is truly and genuinely sustainable, but that work, if done correctly, could come with a massive reward.

That’s the conclusion of a new report released this month by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, an international nonprofit hoping to make a strong bottom-line case for industries to take a more earth-friendly approach to their businesses.

In its flagship report, the commission appears to have done just that.

The report claims that taking a sustainable approach to the world’s food and agriculture challenges, like hunger, food waste and environmental degradation, could lead to new business opportunities totaling an annual $2.3 trillion — and 80 million new jobs — by 2030, based on an analysis of of industry reports and academic literature.

That economic impact would be a sevenfold return on an annual investment of $320 billion, according to the report.

[video: http://videos.vidible.tv/prod/2016-07/11/5783e9cd1c6899497d7adf09_853x480_v1.mp4?DHp_oQA71_V5AW6c6Pqq_Zb76eeoo2G6wOMtVW4-w1rEabuV0K4Nht9IVHL7WnoZ]

What exactly is meant by a sustainable approach that could achieve this, though? The approach considered by the report is one outlined by the United Nations’Sustainable Development Goals, or Global Goals, which were released last year with the aim of reducing poverty, hunger and inequality around the world by 2030.

The SDG agenda calls for significant shifts in how our food is produced, processed and sold, including growing and consuming more produce and meats that have a reduced environmental impact, embracing sustainable farming practices like low- and no-till agriculture and reducing food waste at both the production and retail level.

Such shifts, the report’s author Fraser Thompson said, aren’t just “pie-in-the-sky” daydreaming or, as some critics of the SDGs have put it, byproducts of a “worthless” “high school wish list.”

“It is important to stress that our business opportunities are based on currently available technologies where there is an existing model in operation in some part of the world,” Thompson told HuffPost by email. “We deliberately took this approach to ensure that the insights from the report were feasible for business.”

According to the report, these global shifts would have the bulk of their impact in developing countries — over 90 percent of the forecast job creation would take place on the continents of Africa and Asia due to the large share of arable land and high future consumption growth, Thompson said.

But there are significant opportunities for the U.S. to seize as well.

The three top areas for possible economic growth tied to a more sustainable food system in the U.S. are largely focused on the consumption side of the food value chain — reducing consumer food waste, reformulating food products to be healthier, and helping consumers switch their diets away from resource-intensive products like beef and toward other proteins like poultry, pork, fish and vegetarian diets.

There are already promising examples of the sort of sustainable practices the commission would like to see other industry leaders emulate in play throughout the world.

One of them Thompson named is Winnow, a London-based startup that is battling food waste through a “smart meter” that connects commercial kitchen operations to the cloud and allows chefs to record and analyze all the food that doesn’t get put to use.

Chefs then use that information to tweak their production practices and reduce their kitchens’ food waste by 50 percent or more. The company’s work was recognized with a Guardian Sustainable Business award earlier this year.

CREDIT: ELAINE THOMPSON/AP

A truck dumps compost materials in Everett, Washington. A new report named food waste reduction among the largest areas for economic growth related to sustainable food.

The key, Thompson argues, to harnessing the impressive windfall they’ve forecast will simply be scaling up ideas like Winnow’s kitchen meter. That will require buy-in from a broad swath of businesses and consumers alike.

BSDC chair Lord Mark Malloch-Brown told HuffPost by email he is hopeful the research presented in the report should help industry players connect the dots.

“It will require hard work by individual entrepreneurs and companies to translate this into specific businesses that earn financial returns in line with the economic opportunity we have identified,” Brown, former UN deputy secretary-general, wrote. “That’s hard long-term work but what we have sought to show is that the prize is worth the effort.”

Still, businesses have been slow to take action toward achieving the SDGs and consumers also appear skeptical, according to recent surveys.

According to Thompson, though, we don’t have much longer to wait before taking action toward meeting the world’s increasing food demands, which the UN has warned will grow by 60 percent in 2050.

“The challenges facing the food system in a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario should not be underestimated,” Thompson added. “Addressing the current undernourished population and the rapid demand for food and feed – and competing demand for fuel – will require a radical rethink of past practices.”

This article was originally posted on The Huffington Post​.

Increasing temperatures, rising sea levels and ocean acidification amplify extremes of climate change. Finding a solution to minimise the impact on coastal areas has become a priority. That’s why COP22 host nation Morocco has set up three complementary initiatives, including the Blue Belt, devoted to issues related to fisheries

The Blue Belt initiative stemmed from the Blue Growth concept, launched by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2013.

It aims to encourage sustainable fishing, from seas and lakes to consumers’ plates, to allow marine resources to renew themselves.

Better fishing practices lead to less food waste

“Morocco’s vessel monitoring system (VMS), available on all Moroccan boats, is a good management tool,” Abdelkrim Foutat, President, Moroccan Association of Shipowners told Euronews. “We can follow their units, knowing exactly the distance their ship, its exact location, the time it leaves port and when it returns.”

The Blue Belt initiative aims to better observe the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. The marine navigation buoy is one of the tools used by the National Institute of Fisheries Research off the south coast of Morocco.

“Our ambition is to enhance, improve and implement a coastal marine observation system,” Abdelmalek Faraj, General Director, Moroccan National Institute of Fisheries Research (INRH), told Euronews. “In Morocco we began by installing an oceanographic and meteorological buoy off Dakhla. We aim to install a network in the northwest African region with our partner countries.”

Cultivating a sustainable aquaculture to limit overfishing

“Our goal is to develop and strengthen aquaculture,” said Faraj. “It has a very significant potential, the fisheries sector’s fastest growth in recent years. However, our goal is sustainable development. So we want to encourage the development of seaweed farming and that’s why in Morocco we have several experimental projects you can see here today such as with macro algae.”

The seas and oceans cover two thirds of our planet. Its environment is perhaps fragile but it’s rich in unexploited opportunities.
 

This article was originally posted on Euronews.