Energy21 is highlighting the tremendous benefits South Africa is deriving from the development of wind and solar energy through increased energy security, job creation and economic development. Renewables are the energy of the future, and they’re working for us now.
The world is experiencing a rising youth population. This new generation has an increasing social and environmental awareness, with the energy and knowledge to lead our societies towards a low carbon and climate resilient future.
Be a part of the largest business-focused event taking place during the annual Conference of Parties (COP22) - the Sustainable Innovation Forum 2016 - taking place on 14-15 November at the Four Seasons Marrakech, Morocco.
Building on year-round work from Climate Action and the UN Environment Programme, the 2 day Forum will convene cross-sector participants from business, Government, finance, UN, NGO and civil society to create an unparalleled opportunity to bolster sustainable innovation and bring scale to the emerging green economy.
Greater cooperation through carbon trading could reduce the cost of climate change mitigation by 32 percent by 2030, according to a new World Bank report released today at an international carbon event in Vietnam.
New modelling analysis undertaken for the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2016 report shows that increased international carbon trading could enable large-scale emissions reductions at much lower cost than at present, based on the carbon mitigation goals spelled out in countries’ national climate plans under the Paris Agreement -- the Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. By the middle of the century, an international market has the potential to reduce global mitigation costs by more than 50 percent.
The goal of limiting emission reductions to meet a 2°C or lower target will be difficult to achieve cost-efficiently without more carbon trading, according to the report, prepared by the World Bank and launched at the 15th Assembly of the Partnership for Market Readiness.
“The more we cooperate through carbon trading, the larger the savings and the greater the potential to increase ambition by countries in the short term,” said John Roome, Senior Director for Climate Change at the World Bank. “To be effective, carbon pricing policies must be coordinated with other energy and environmental policies –this will require collaboration within and between countries.”
The Paris Agreement, reached at COP21 in late 2015, sets up a framework for global cooperation through carbon markets. Over 100 countries consider carbon pricing initiatives as part of their NDCs, through emissions trading within or across borders, international crediting, carbon taxation and other measures.
Under this new cooperative framework, one country can benefit from mitigation activities resulting in emission reductions in another country to fulfill its NDC. The report indicates that financial flows of 2–5 percent of gross domestic product in countries with lower-cost mitigation activities could be realized for investments that will reduce emissions by 2050.
The report also shows that momentum on carbon pricing has continued to grow. In 2016, 40 national jurisdictions and over 20 cities, states, and regions are putting a price on carbon, including seven out of 10 of the world’s largest economies. The coverage of carbon pricing initiatives on global emissions has increased threefold over the past decade, translating to the equivalent of around 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide (GtCO2e), or about 13 percent of global GHG emissions. In addition, governments raised about US$26 billion in revenues from carbon pricing initiatives in 2015. This represents a 60 percent increase compared to the revenues raised in 2014.
This year saw the launch of two new carbon pricing initiatives: British Columbia put a price on emissions from liquefied natural gas plants alongside its carbon tax, and Australia implemented a safeguard mechanism to the Emissions Reduction Fund, requiring large emitters that exceed their set limit to offset excess emissions.
Looking ahead, next year could see the largest ever increase in the share of global emissions covered by carbon pricing initiatives in a single year. If the Chinese national Emissions Trading System (ETS) is implemented in 2017 as planned, it would become the largest carbon pricing initiative in the world, surpassing the EU ETS. Initial estimates show that emissions covered by carbon pricing initiatives could increase from 13 percent to between 20 and 25 percent of global GHG emissions.
In April, the High Level Panel on Carbon Pricing called upon the international community to double the percentage of global emissions covered by explicit carbon prices to 25% by 2020 and to double it again to 50% within a decade. Heads of State from Canada, Chile, Ethiopia, France, Germany and Mexico are among the leaders calling for this increased commitment.
The report was prepared with the technical support of Ecofys and Vivid Economics.
To download the full report, visit https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25160
War and conflicts are ravaging communities across the world today. The recent years have also seen wide-spread targeting of women and girls in conflict zones and a marked pushback on women’s rights. Sixteen years since the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 in 2000, the women, peace and security agenda remains relevant and critical in the face of rising violence, extremism and deadly conflicts.
Even as women continue to bear the brunt of war, there is increased recognition of their pivotal role as peacebuilders. For example, in 2015, 7 out of 10 peace agreements signed included gender specific provisions [1]—a vast improvement compared against the analysis showing that only 73 out of 664 agreements produced between 1990 and 2000 included a reference to women. More security sector personnel are now trained to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence, and more countries are implementing national action plans or related strategies.
When women are included in peace processes, there is a 20 per cent increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least 2 years, and a 35 per cent increase in the probability of an agreement lasting at least 15 years [3]. There is a growing momentum for fulfilling the women, peace and security agenda: at the 2015 High-Level Review of the implementation of resolution 1325, more than 180 political, financial and institutional commitments were made by Member States and regional organizations.Resolution 2242, which was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council during the 2015 Open Debate, together with the seven previous resolutions and related policy commitments on women, peace and security, provide a strong common agenda for action.
Yet, implementation of policies and international commitments on the ground remain unfulfilled. Much more needs to be done. For example, women make only 3 per cent of UN military peacekeepers [4]. In conflict-affected countries, women’s share of seats in parliament is four per cent lower than the global average of 22.7 per cent [5]. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently urged all actors, including governments, to earmark 15 per cent of peacebuilding funds to projects that directly advance gender equality, which would not always require new funding, but rather, a prioritization within existing funds.
On 25 October 2016, the UN Security Council will convene its annual Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security, with a focus on how Member States, regional organizations and the UN have followed-up on commitments and recommendations from the 2015 High-level Review and the related Global Study on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). The Debate will also consider future steps to advancing the agenda, taking into account new threats and emerging challenges, including the rise of violent extremism, the protracted nature of displacement and the impact of climate shocks.
The new report of the UN Secretary-General on women, peace and security (S/2016/822) brings forth information on recent trends and highlights latest development and results. It also provides an update on the status of implementation since 1 January 2015 and draws attention to areas of stagnation and regression and other concerning developments. The report features initiatives such as the new mechanism in the Security Council, the Informal Experts Group on women, peace and security, designed to ensure greater flows of quality and actionable information to the Council; the new Global Acceleration Instrument on women, peace and security and humanitarian action, aimed at catalyzing new funding for commitments on this agenda and country-level progress in a range of areas from implementation of National Action Plans to increased women’s leadership in institutions responsible for peace and security. It further notes that the priority areas identified last year continue to require urgent action.
On the 16th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, UN Women spotlights women’s leadership and the critical role they play in preventing conflict, sustaining peace and shaping more effective responses to today’s complex crises.
Through the Global Gender Gap Report, the World Economic Forum quantifies the magnitude of gender disparities and tracks their progress over time, with a specific focus on the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics. The 2016 Report covers 144 countries. More than a decade of data has revealed that progress is still too slow for realizing the full potential of one half of humanity within our lifetimes.
- Morocco looks at waste as a resource which can be better managed to fuel the economy and reduce environmental impacts.
- Supported by the World Bank, Morocco aims to increase the rate of recycled material to 20 percent by 2022, while improving the conditions of waste-pickers.
- Oum Azza, the Maghreb’s largest modern landfill facility, derives value from organic waste by tapping into biogas from decomposition.
Scavengers have always known there is value to be found in trash.Twelve years ago, when Milouda Haimar’s elderly husband became too ill to work, she turned to the trash mountain near her home. At night, when her six children were in bed, she would strap a flashlight over her headscarf and join other scavengers picking through the refuse of Rabat, the capital city of Morocco. The most valuable finds were copper, followed by aluminum, hard plastic containers and cardboard. Milouda says she could make about 120 to 250 Dirhams* a night, barely enough to provide for her family.
But the trash heap was unsafe. Men, women, elderly people and children competed for the best finds and went through the trash without gloves, in the rain and blinding sunshine, day and night. Moreover, the trash was located in an old quarry that operated without regulations or oversight from 1980 to 2007.
“It used to smell terrible, with streams of toxic leach flowing into the Bouregreg (the river that runs through Rabat). There were walls of black or white foam blocking the road at times” remembers Gerard Prenant, Director of the private operator that manages the Oum Azza waste management site.
Today, the Bouregreg estuary which discharges to the Atlantic Ocean, is clean enough to attract fishermen and tourists. And Milouda and her fellow trash-pickers have been relocated to a modern facility, the Oum Azza waste management site, where they operate a one-of-a-kind recycling cooperative. This is partly thanks to Morocco’sProgramme National des Déchets Ménagers, through which the Government intends to increase the rate of material collected and recycled from 5 percent today to 20 percent by 2022 while improving the conditions of waste pickers. This Program has been supported by four consecutive World Bank Municipal Solid Waste Development Policy Loans (DPL).
The private operator that runs the Oum Azza site says it is the largest modern sorting and landfilling facility in the Maghreb area, taking in about 850,000 tons of refuse per year. It sponsored the creation of a cooperative and built a sorting facility to help people like Milouda who used to work at the makeshift site, continue earning money but in safer and more organized conditions. About 150 people belong to the cooperative, of which 22 are women.
The members are organized in teams that pick out different types of recyclables on a conveyor belt. “Everyone is paid the same monthly salary of 2,620** Dirhams a month,” explains Yassine Mazzout, President of the Cooperative At-Tawaffouk (which means Success in Arabic), and any excess profit is shared once a year according to the number of hours each one has worked. “Although I make a bit less money than before, there are other advantages,” says Milouda. Cooperative members receive health insurance, access to a bank account and a low mortgage.
The trash pickers also contribute to the business model. The on-site recycling plays an important role: by extracting about 2,200 tons of solid trash per year for resale and turning about 100,000 tons of green garden waste into compost, the cooperative reduces the volume of trash that needs to be buried and prolongs the site’s life expectancy. Yassine would like to recycle more waste and help trash pickers in other cities, like Agadir, get organized.
" What Morocco is doing is exemplary. They are looking at waste as a resource rather than trash. The Oum Azza site is a promising model of what other landfills can and should look like with the roll out of the government program. Combining recycling, value chains and jobs is a good recipe to make the dump story a success story. ", Maria Sarraf, Lead Environmental Economist at the World Bank
The Oum Azza landfill is also set up to derive value from organic waste, which represents a large share of the trash in Morocco (about 60%, compared to 30% in Europe), by tapping into the biogas that results from the process of decomposition. Tubes and spigots will one day convey gas to a nearby cement factory furnace. At the time of the site visit, in October 2015, the operator running Oum Azza was waiting for the adoption of a decree that would allow it to sell excess electricity generated by the biogas to the national grid. Shortly after, the decree was adopted as part of a package of reforms supported by the World Bank Inclusive Green Growth DPL.
For now, the gas is flared, converting methane, a gas that has a very high greenhouse warming effect, into carbon, which is relatively less polluting for the earth’s climate. Oum Azza will be the first landfill in Morocco to sell Carbon Emission Reductions through the Clean Development Mechanism program supported by the World Bank. During its lifetime, the site will generate about half a million tons of CO2 emission reductions through the capture of landfill gas and its use to generate electricity on site.
The landfill operator also has plans to create green compost from garden waste and to sell dry and pulverized trash to cement makers. “Our job is to manage waste, and our interest is in having the least possible trash to bury,” says Prenant.
“What Morocco is doing is exemplary. They are looking at waste as a resource rather than trash. The Oum Azza site is a promising model of what other landfills can and should look like with the roll out of the government program. Combining recycling, value chains and jobs is a good recipe to make the dump story a success story” says Maria Sarraf, Lead Environmental Economist at the World Bank.
