Environmental governance is about political environmental policy related to defining, developing and implementing the elements needed to achieve sustainability. It is about the design and execution of policy. All human activities; political, social and economic, should be understood and managed as subsets of the environment and ecosystems. Governance includes not only government, but also business and civil society, and emphasizes a holistic system management. Environmental Governance in Africa has not been as successful as in Europe or North America because of lack of effective coordination. Environmental experts have identified the absence of coordination among governmental agencies as a major challenge confronting environmental governance in Africa. Also sovereignty, existing divergent values, different levels of development, corruption and insincerity of purpose are challenges militating against a healthy environment in Africa.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been the forerunner in involving governments in developing and implementing Environmental Law or Governance. However, since its establishment in 1972, the number of Governmental institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) dealing with environmental matters and related issues in the African continent have increased. In 2000 for example, statistics show that there were respectively 49 to 59 NGOs per million people in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. The role of Environmental NGOs’ include but are not limited to promoting activities such as environmental education and advocacy, participation in environmental policy-making and implementation, and business-NGO partnerships. It is unfortunate that with all NGO-governmental efforts, the economic significance derived from environmental governance is yet to be fully understood or acted upon hence the myriad of environmental challenges currently present in the African continent.

A recent report by the Institute for Security Studies in Africa (ISS) suggests that Africa’s challenges are linked to environmental insecurity and the development catastrophe, which includes poverty, water scarcity, degradation and inequitable distribution of natural resources, loss of arable land, food insecurity, coastal degradation and wetlands intrusion. These have posed (and continue to pose) great institutional challenges in Africa. Furthermore, many African countries are severely strained by these problems which are intricately intertwined and compounded by rapid population growth and migration causing unanticipated pressure on the resource base.  As a result the international community has placed immense demands on these countries, yet these African countries lack the capacity to cope with these changes and where they make an effort, it is negligible.  Therefore, many environmental institutions in Africa require an overhaul in guiding principles, policies and laws. For effective environmental governance in Africa; national governments require a lot of assistance if at all they are to contribute to sustainable development. It is also notable that national implementation of the Agenda 21 and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in Africa has barely progressed and results remain to be seen. This is owed to diverse institutional and policy challenges, most common being ineffective governance structures, lack of adequate expertise, inadequate finances, lack of tools and equipment to implement and enforce current laws and international conventions, conflicting sectoral strategies towards human and natural development, unsustainable trade policies and corporate unaccountability. To address these challenges it is important to effectively address the synergies created between different MEAs. Governments should prioritize on expanded capacity-building programs and develop stronger commitment and discipline toward environmental policy.

Full Implementation of the Agenda 21 and MEAs can be achieved through advanced communication by MEA secretariats - a role played by United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). However, communication is faced with challenges that include false reporting and inadequate sharing of environmental databases among institutions. Rwanda, for example, is working toward enhancing the Rwanda Information Technology Authority (RITA) which consolidates and coordinates the country’s information technology resources. Since RITA ensures information flow among sectors, this is great initiative for other African countries to borrow from. In summary, African countries will achieve effective environmental governance, if all of its countries demonstrate their capacity to conquer environmental challenges.

In conclusion, Global Environmental Governance (GEG) has not ignored Africa’s challenges; one of the two themes for discussion at Rio+20—the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to take place in June, 2012—is “Institutional Frameworks for Sustainable Development,” within which GEG reform is a key area for discussion. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), funded by the Danish government, and working closely with UNEP and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), has embarked upon a project that seeks to make an intellectual contribution on GEG reform to the African preparatory process for Rio+20. Through two high-level African consultations, the project seeks to identify key issues for Africa in GEG reform and to draw out options that are not currently part of Africa’s official preparatory process.

Children and youth are amongst the largest stakeholders of civil society but, sadly, continue to be the least represented. Due to pre-conceived notions about our capabilities, we are often taken for granted and not allowed to have a say in determining our future. The youth of today are aghast at the escalating rate of environmental degradation and at the prospect of us, future generation, inheriting a barren planet that cannot sustain its inhabitants.

We cannot and should not remain mute observers at the increasing imbalance of the three pillars of sustainability. With the global population crossing 7 billion, the earth's finite natural resources are under tremendous strain. Economic progress is being achieved at the cost of the environment while, paradoxically, the polarization between the global north and south continues to increase. Vast tracts of forests are getting wiped out daily, fresh water bodies are being polluted by industrial effluents, millions of hectares of arable land are degrading into deserts and multitudes of species are being pushed towards extinction. The rapid increase in the global carbon footprint is having a hugely detrimental effect on our climate.

[video:https://vimeo.com/101874077]

 

Performing climate justice song Tree planting is an integral part of all our academies as we feel that this is the simplest and most effective way of combatting climate change. It is also very relevant to the region we live in, since deserts surround us. Trees not only stop land degradation, they also reduce your carbon footprint, retain water and positively impact climate change. As an outcome of our academies, our members have planted thousands of trees not just in the UAE, but in other countries as well. Each academy is taught by a fresh group of members and during our preparations we train them on public speaking and presentation skills. Our academies are now much awaited events and not only schools, even corporates, have started to invite us to hold sessions for their employees. We have also begun conducting road shows so that we can reach out to a wider segment of civil society.

The private sector has a huge responsibility in working to slow climate change, but what’s its role in developing policies? Recently an innovative report by UNEP, WRI, WWF, Ceres and CDP was released, providing guidelines to companies in best using their influence to shape good climate policies. The “Guide for Responsible Corporate Engagement in Climate Policy”, which was developed based on interviews with more than 75 leading companies, policymakers and investors, is intended to compel businesses to identify, align and report their actions towards climate policies in order to bring transparency and accountability. 

Since there has been much inconsistency in companies’ sustainability commitments and their lobbying actions, CDP has recently called on corporations to disclose their climate lobbying positions. The Guide for Responsible Corporate Engagement in Climate Policy can help in managing and reporting influences on climate policy to make sure that proposed sustainability commitments are linked with lobbying actions.

This guide is innovative and inspiring; by helping companies take responsibility and subtly calling them out for working against climate policies, we find a way to incorporate corporations into the conversation without making them seem like the enemy. It is true that corporate influences have presented a major obstacle to the climate policy process, but private sector participation is necessary to establish a low-carbon economy. The UN Global Compact reports that “only 30% of leading companies have aligned their lobbying with their corporate responsibility commitments”, but with more pressure to ensure transparency and accountability, there will be a stronger business for consistency.

At COP19, business leaders and government officials came together to learn about this new guide at the Caring for the Climate Business Forum at the UNFCCC in Poland.  Other business forums at the UNFCCC this year, like the Climate Solutions 2013, help the private and public sector work together to find solutions and be able to come up with a global climate agreement in 2015. At the UNFCCC’s Business, Industry & NGOs Day, Christina Figueres stressed that “we must hear loudly and clearly that the private sector is willing to participate in markets, increase efficiency, capture technology gains and produce low-carbon products” for an international agreement.

So it seems that we are entering a new paradigm, one in which governments and the public are holding the private sector accountable in their actions towards climate policy. Many companies understand the risks involved in not addressing climate change; in the US, we recently saw the Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy stressing that action on the national level needs to happen. Although many are criticizing corporations for holding COP19 hostage, we must stop labeling companies as the bad guys, and start thinking of how they will be able to help in establishing a new regime of progressive climate policy and a low-carbon economy.

Source: WRI 2013

It is that time of the year when climate change brings the world together. On September 23rd, world leaders will gather in New York, and in December the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place in Lima, Peru.

In both summits, policy makers, political leaders, the business community, NGOs and civil society will meet to discuss challenges, opportunities and best ways to cope with climate change.

The New York summit is convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, aimed at catalyzing and galvanizing climate actions and decisions.

Of the sectors that are experiencing the adverse effects of climate change, agriculture is doubly affected due to its sensitivity to various climate aspects.

In the past few years, millions of small scale farmers with limited resources available to adapt have felt the heat in different parts of the world.Within East Africa alone, there have been severe droughts in The, erratic weather patterns and outbreaks of crop diseases in Kenya, and floods in Tanzania, just to mention a few.

A farmer tills his land so as to plant drought resistant crops. Photo: Elijah Mumo

This year has not been an exemption in Kenya, as far as these adverse events are concerned. A severe shortage of rain hit Kenya between the months of March and June. During this period, farmers normally expect rain so they can plant maize and a variety of other crops.

Further worsening the situation, maize lethal necrosis has in recent years struck crops in normally high-yielding regions. The disease causes maize plants to wilt and die during their flowering stage.

According to Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), small scale farmers produce about half of food for the Sub-Sahara region. Small holders who own 2 hectares of land or less are the least likely to be resilient to these shocks.

The alliance published the “2014 African Agriculture Status Report” on September 3, in which it argues that these small holder farmers run the risk of experiencing the effects of climate change in severe ways, particularly because about 90% of them rely almost entirely on rain fed agriculture.

The report underscores the importance of addressing climate change to increase African agricultural productivity, improve food security and enhance the resilience of farmers to climate change. The report could not have come at a better time. With the unfolding climate trends, the need for innovative agricultural practices to adapt to the changing climate has never been more urgent.

Once again, another Conference of Parties is here, and once again, it is time to talk, talk and talk. Though the COP 17 is not the first COP held in an African soil (COP 12 was held Kenya in 2006), but this one by and large is the much talk-about COP in Africa, hence dubbed as the Africans COP. But the questions which remain are what make COP 17 really an African COP? What is unique about it?  Is it only because it is held in Africa and that’s it!! Or is organising the COP in Africa really means the outcome of the negotiation will favour Africa’s agenda? Can South Africa, the incoming president really steer the negotiation to make it swing in favour of Africa? 

Will the outcome of the discussion going to be as usual, a simple COP decision without any binding targets or this time round would it be a fair ambitious and a legally binding one?  Is this year’s COP going to be different from that of 2009, where few powerful countries meet in a green room, put up negotiating text, tailored to suite their selfish national interest then ask the world to accept what they decided?  Or is COP 17 going to be a COP, where leaders make franks talks, having the threat of climate change at the back of their minds and then make a COP where parties big or small unclenched their fists for national interest to a global climate treaty that is needed to salvage the planet and the future generation?

Well, these are questions that needs urgent and decisive answers yet many a time there is none. So the world once again sit and wait, and as usual hoping for the best but expecting the worst. The COP 17 ends on the 9th December 2011 and then we shall know what our leaders have put on the table for us.

While we are waiting, fingers-a-crossed, we want to reflect on what we think should constitute a successful COP or otherwise, in the eyes of an African youth. First, we want to join the African group stand at the negotiation and want to say to them, louder and clear that we are behind you. As young people, representing the future, the generation that will inherit whatever decision reach today, and living in Africa, the continent that is most vulnerable and less capacities to adapt, we are equally perturb by the slow pace to act by those countries that are able, and in fact responsible for current predicament of the changing climate.

We are now tired of the hide-and-seek and business as usual of talks that lead us nowhere. The COP is such an expensive under-taking that we can longer accept the lack progress to reach a definitive agreement for global emission reduction. So, it’s time to act.

In a recent interview of Tosi Mpanu, the chief Negotiator of the African group under the UNFCCC with leaderhiponline, he said that Africa has high respect for the Kyoto protocol, and will not comprise with the life of the KP, the only legally binding instrument that requires those countries most responsible for causing climate change to reduce pollution. We welcome this tough stand and are happy that our leaders think this way.

Though we has no doubt that with a united African front this is achievable, however, we are worried that annex 1 countries will use their divide-and-rule  tactic which they are very good at, to get an easy way out.  We hope that the respective African countries will not be lured again to comprise their concerted efforts for big promises that are often not fulfilled. What we want to see now is tangible commitments that is legally binding and support climate financing needed to curb the climate crises. Funding for climate change based on bilateral agreement cannot just work for Africa and should not be accepted.

We therefore join Mr.Tosi and the general African group to ask for tangible outcome from Durban that is based on science that is fair and that honours the promises all countries have made to each other in the UN Climate Convention and its Kyoto Protocol. Unlike the mainly perceive death of Kyoto protocol in Durban we expect nothing less extension of the KP to another commitment period, after the current commitment expires in 2012.

This agreement need to be reach in Durban in order to avoid gap. Parties need to agree to a level of co-operative global efforts that cut emission to a safe level for Africa and other developing nations. And hence we want implore on all parties to agree to global emission reductions well below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Also, we want to remind parties do all it require to close the “mitigation gap”, ensuring that the developed countries take on the lead for fair and appropriate contributions to the global emission reduction efforts, based on historical responsibility and ability.

We want the “finance gap” to be close ensuring that the developed countries meet their commitments to enable the adaptation and mitigation efforts in developing countries that is clean and not following the annex 1 countries development pathway. In addition we want to see, capacity building, climate Education integrate into central focus on negotiation.

This may look to be a tall demand for many critics but we stand firm until these demands are met. We have Faith!!!

Ebrima S. Dem, youth climate activist. He is the climate change focal person for the Network of African Youth for Development ( NAYD),Climate change Education specialist and member African youth Initiatives on climate change (ayicc). He is currently the National Coordinator of Global Unification the Gambia. He can be reach at: climateinfo@nayd.org.

Climate change is one of the major problems we face today.

It may lead to the permanent flooding of low-lying regions and the disruption of potable water supply to millions around the world as the ice-packs in the mountains shrink and deplete the water reserves of major population centers. It may also lead to the decline in oil and gas supplies as hydro-carbon reserves peak and the price of energy increases exponentially. These events would have an extreme affect on our world.

But climate change may also cause, directly or indirectly, deep fractures in world trade and commerce that would likely result in political tensions and armed conflict among religious, ethnic, and cultural communities across the world. Ending extreme poverty is impossible without tackling climate change. A few months away from the defining Climate Change negotiations in Paris, now is the time to face the defining challenge of our generation.

[video:https://vimeo.com/128639704]

 

"Communication has becoming the glue, the cement of all we do in everyday life, and especially when it comes tackling major global issues, such as climate change."

Whereas in the past, we were able to increase food production over a few cropping cycles, or establish income generating ventures in a couple of years, the “new” problems we face may take years, and in the case of climate change, several generations for the world community to resolve.

How do we build consensus and muster the altruistic intent of the present generation to consume less, de-escalate conflict, and subject ourselves to research so that future generations who will exist long after we are gone may inherit a habitable planet?

The tried and tested methods of agriculture extension, social mobilization, community participation, and multi-lateral negotiation are unlikely to succeed on their own as these systemic problems grow in their severity and people submit to innate human instincts for self-preservation and compete even more keenly for rapidly dwindling natural resources, ratchet-up violence, hoard energy and water, and close markets to international commerce.

We do not have appropriate strategies to begin addressing these “new” and highly complex challenges. 

At the 2012 edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the background report on the global risks our world faces clearly stated that three common, crosscutting observations from the varied groups of experts consulted:

* Decision-makers need to improve understanding of incentives that will improve collaboration in response to global risks;

* Trust, or lack of trust, is perceived to be a crucial factor in how risks may manifest themselves. In particular, this refers to confidence, or lack thereof, in leaders, in the systems which ensure public safety and in the tools of communication that are revolutionizing how we share and digest information;

* Communication and information sharing on risks must be improved by introducing greater transparency about uncertainty and conveying it to the public in a meaningful way.

Jan Servaes (PhD, 1987, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium) is Chair Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at the City University of Hong Kong and UNESCO Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change. Servaes has undertaken research, development, and advisory work around the world and is known as the author of journal articles and books on such topics as international and development communication; ICT and media policies; intercultural communication and language; and participation and social change.

Climate change is a global problem, but some nations are more susceptible to its negative impacts than others. According to research, the nations most vulnerable to climate change are not the ones that produce the highest levels of carbon dioxide emissions.

MHA@GW, the online master of health administration from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, created this data visualization to illuminate the dichotomy between the countries most susceptible to climate change and the countries that emit the most CO2.

They compared data from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN) to data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) to develop the map. The ND-GAIN evaluates a nation’s vulnerability and readiness to adapt to climate change, and the CDIAC does a yearly measurement of each nation’s CO2 emissions.

Action on climate change needs people. The People’s Climate March that took place in New York and other major cities around the world at the weekend is the best possible example of this. At a time when the clicking of a like-button can give the tempting illusion of having done something, we need to remind ourselves that nothing replaces the physical presence of people, together in the same space, demanding the same thing. However, the key ingredient for creating action is communication. I have recently become involved with the Adopt a Negotiator project and I am one of about 300 people who are engaged in the #Call4Climate writing challenge in preparation for this year’s climate change negotiations in Lima and the crucial negotiations in Paris at the end of 2015. For the most part, it is a virtual activity as we all set out to blog, write for online news papers, and cook up some viral posts on twitter and social media. As part of the #Call4Climate, we are climate communicators. This is a hard task and here I set out to reflect on it. I argue that it is about people, people, and people.

Effective climate communication, by that I mean communication that leads to action, is hard. The recently published Don’t even think about it: why our brains are wired to ignore climate change makes this point eloquently and is depressingly convincing. Generally, research from the social sciences and psychology suggests that moving people to act on climate change is difficult. Most importantly, we learn that knowing does not equal acting. The focus should not be on how to present more facts in the hope that people will finally change. The science is clear and this is important. But science does not translate straight into action. This is where we need to think and think harder to find approaches that work.

People I Though, as part of Adopt A Negotiator, we are not marching together in the streets, we are working on the same issues and offer virtual support. We share each other stories with our own networks, we share on twitter and meet online for skill-ups where we talk through various options of how to create effective messages. Being part of a community, even as it is virtual, is tremendously important. A group, people next to you doing the same thing, is irreplaceable in keeping momentum and keeping motivation throughout challenging times. This is the first sense in which climate communication is about people.

People II Climate change is incredibly abstract and feels incredibly far away from most of us, most of the time. We need to remember that we create messages for people, about people. Looking at what my fellow Adopt a Negotiator trackers have published so far, many stories are about the plights people face as a result of climate change. This is the second sense in which climate communication needs to be about people.

People III I think that there is a third aspect that we haven’t fully tapped into yet. We all have heard and seen the stories of people affected by climate change. We have heard stories of catastrophes and remarkable human resilience and ingenuity in the face of it. But what about those people who work on climate change? Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that activists, scientists, and diplomats are as important as the people most affected by climate change. However, what I am suggesting is that by looking at the people who spent their lives mobilizing for climate change, researching climate change, and negotiating climate change, we can learn a lot and we can be inspired. They might not be as sexy as a celebrity delivering a one-liner on why we need to address climate change but they are the ones actually doing something.

We live as people in a world of people; we are social beings all the way down. How our fellow women, men, and children are doing matters. It affects us; we feel compassion and are, hopefully, moved to act. What they are doing matters just as much. I am suggesting that seeing and understanding the people who already work on finding solutions to climate change can move others to become involved as well. We are moved by what moves other people.

Why have the various organisers and supporters of the climate march spent night after night preparing for this event? Why are some protesters willing to face arrest to support their cause, as it happened at the Copenhagen summit in 2009? Why does the scientist continue to research and publish despite receiving hate mail and even death threats? And why does the diplomat return to the negotiation table despite knowing that her room for manoeuvre is small because she has nothing to offer but a moral appeal and that coming from a small island state she is vastly outnumbered in the negotiations unable to face "negotiation by exhaustion" effectively? I think that these are the questions we should be asking.

One recent project that follows this direction is "Scared Scientists" by Nick Bowers whose portraits of climate scientists combined with their statements on what they fear the most about climate change are beautiful and haunting at the same time. The logic is this: if these people are so deeply moved to do something, why shouldn’t I be? If it matters for them, shouldn’t it also matter for me? Let’s bring on these kinds of stories and make climate communication ultimately about people, people, and people.

Katharina Hone is part of the #call4climate writing challenge at Adopt a Negotiator. With DiploFoundation she has been teaching online courses on climate change diplomacy since 2008 and was recently involved in running a capacity development program for participants from Pacific Island States. On twitter: @kathone

Wind energy plays an influential role in addressing climate change on a global level. Many countries around the world have been working hard to lower their carbon emissions during the last decades. Some of the world’s leading markets, such as the US, Denmark, Australia and the UK have recognized the power of clean energy in reducing carbon pollution, and this can include wind.

By increasing the proportion of electricity generated from wind energy, we can lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Wind farms do not emit greenhouse gases when they generate electricity, in contrast to coal and gas stations. An additional negative side in relation to both coal and gas as sources of energy is the amount ofwasted heat that cannot be easily transformed into electricity. Almost half of the energy used to produce electricity from gas and coal is lost during the production process, which is not the case with energy generated by the wind.

[video:https://vimeo.com/90993308]

A group of young Canadians take it upon themselves to strive for a more sustainable way of life by building their own wind turbine from scratch. Video credit: Jake Beed (Action4Climate Competition)

Densely populated and low-lying, Bangladesh is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. How can millions of Bangladeshis protect their families and incomes from rising sea levels, erratic rainfall and temperature extremes? That’s the topic of a new film by tve: Television Trust for the Environment, commissioned by CDKN. The filmmakers follow a group of researchers from Bangladesh and the UK as they investigate how climate change is causing people to migrate within Bangladesh, as a way of coping.

They follow communities in the Gabura, Satkhira region that were affected by Cyclone Aila in 2009.  Some families, exasperated by the damage to croplands, decide to migrate to inland cities for good, while others try their hand at seasonal work in the city, returning to their home village every few weeks or months.

“When people are in stress, they use migration as a climate change adaptation tool,” said Dr Tasneem Siddiqui, the study lead and a founding chair of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) at the University of Dhaka.

The research team investigates whether public policy options are available to protect migrants’ livelihoods, in facing such climate-related stress.

One of the team’s key conclusions, says Dr Siddiqui, is that once internal migrants arrive in cities, they lack some of the basic employment rights and social support mechanisms of established residents. The government could do more to recognise migrants’ vulnerability and protect them: “Mega city development [should] take into account that these people should have their rights. All this can be done through preparing an internal migration policy and following it up with the employers, so that [there is a] certain type of rights protection.”

Join the film crew and the research team as they travel down the Kholpetua River to Gabura and talk with climate-affected families, then visit migrant workers in the cities, to hear how they are making ends meet.

 

Watch the short version of the film: Climate change and migration – Living on the Go  (12 minutes)

Watch the longer feature version with more material from Bangladesh’s climate-affected villages: Climate change and migration – Living on the Go (20 minutes)