Last years UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) was hailed as an historic landmark in the battle against climate change. For the first time the majority of countries present committed to the goal of limiting global temperature increase well below 2 degrees celsius and urging efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. It also placed binding obligations on developed countries to support undeveloped countries. The momentum toward an agreement was underscored on the opening day by the presence of 150 presidents and prime ministers, the largest ever single day gathering of heads of state. At the end of an epic thirteen year journey to document the impacts of climate change on every continent, I obviously applaud this momentous agreement. But, and it’s a big but, having witnessed the scale of the destruction currently being wreaked around the world at a 1 degree rise and under, is this too little and too late.

I have always been interested in wildlife and the natural environment as well as a keen photographer. About 14 years ago I started to read more about climate change in scientific journals.  At the time I was looking for a bit more focus for my photographic work. Decision made, I would organise my first specific climate change photo shoot.

In 2004 I spent a month in Alaska looking mainly at glacial retreat, permafrost melt, and forest fires. The last part of the trip was to spend a week on Shishmaref, a tiny island in the Chukchi Sea, between Alaska and Siberia. The small island is home to a community of around 600 Inuits, whose houses were being washed into the sea. Sea ice used to form around their island home around late September, but with the Arctic being the most rapidly warming area of the planet, even in 2004, the sea ice wasn’t forming till Christmas time. This meant any early winter storms knocked great chunks off their island, when in the past it would have been protected and locked solid by sea ice. I was to witness on Shishmaref, something that I have seen many time since, that is, those least responsible for climate change are most impacted by it. The whole experience completely blew me away. The evidence that the Arctic was warming rapidly was so strong, coupled with talking to Inuit elders about the changes they had witnessed in their life times, left me in no doubt; documenting this should be my life’s work.

My next shoot took me to Tuvalu. A tiny Pacific coral island country (the smallest country in the world) that was being swamped by sea level rise. More people climb Everest every year than visit Tuvalu. I timed my trip to this little known archipelago for the highest spring tides of the year. What I saw was completely shocking. With a flat calm sea, the tides rose so high, that they forced water up through the porous coral, flooding the centre of the island and leaving it in places three feet under water. The inhabitants, mainly Polynesian fishermen were utterly defenceless.

The plan soon formulated in my head, that I should attempt to document the impacts of climate change and the rise of renewable energy on every continent. I started on a journey that I had to finish. There followed photo shoots to cover drought and bush fires in Australia, drought and coal fired power stations in China, glacial retreat in Greenland, Floods in Malawi, glacial retreat in Bolivia, drought and the world’s largest solar power station in California, renewable energy in Iceland, floating houses to combat floods and rising seas in Holland, declining penguin populations in Antarctica, declining snow pack in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, the list goes on and on. I wanted to cover three main topics. What is causing climate change, the impacts this is having and what can we do about it.

Thirteen years on I feel like I’ve been through the mangle. I’ve come close to being  avalanched in the Himalayas, broke through a snow bridge over a crevasse on the Greenland ice sheet, narrowly avoiding plummeting to the bottom and being fleeced by my guide in China.

On any journey like this there are inevitably high and lows. The biggest lows were two fold. Firstly documenting the tar sands in Canada’s Northern Alberta, the most destructive environmental project on the planet. The rate of deforestation is second only to the Amazon rainforest, and the resulting synthetic oil has up to five times the carbon footprint of crude oil. Taking to the air the scale of the devastation is breathtaking. As far as the eye can see, the forest has been destroyed and in its place a toxic wasteland of oily sludge is the legacy of greed that has driven this insanity.

Whilst there I was followed by oil company security guards everywhere I went. On my second day, I was stopped by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who told me, if I so much as took one footstep off the highway, they would arrest me for trespass and jail me for three months. This level of corruption is rife, probably the worst case is that of the GP, Dr John O’Connor. He was the first person to document the huge spike in rare cancers in the first nation Canadians living downstream of the tar sands. When he approached the Canadian Government, asking them to undertake a health assessment on the community, to try and see what was causing this, their response was to charge him with five cases of gross professional misconduct. A ploy that distracted him from his important work for six years, until he was completely exonerated on all charges.

On my last photo shoot to Bolivia, I had been up at 18,000 feet in the Andes, documenting the complete disappearance of the Chacaltaya Glacier, which used to be the worlds highest ski resort. Stood their at 18,000 feet, gasping for breath in the thin air, all that was left of the glacier were a few old snow patches and a pile of rubble. Downstream of here lies, La Paz, Bolivia’s largest city, a city that suffers increasing water shortages as the glaciers rapidly shrink and disappear.

The highs were truly uplifting. I spent three weeks in India documenting renewable energy. Firstly in the Sunderbans, the Ganges Delta, where a solar project was delivering electricity to poor subsistence farmers for the first time. Each house had a battery that they carried to the solar station once a week to recharge. The battery was enough to recharge a mobile phone and provide light in their houses, avoiding the need to use highly polluting kerosene lamps inside. Around the world it is estimated that over a million people a year die from inhaling toxic kerosene fumes. What a joy it was to see children able to do their homework by the clean light of a low energy electric light bulb. My visit to the Muni Seva Ashram in Goraj was utterly inspirational. The Ashram is a peaceful haven delivering cradle to grave services, schooling, and a state of the art cancer hospital, all powered by renewable energy. It was here that I photographed the world’s first and only solar crematorium, capable of dispatching four bodies a day, strictly in accordance with Hindu principles.

The Ashram left a deep lasting impression on me, of how there is a cleaner, cheaper, healthier way of powering our lives.

Climate change has accelerated entirely due to our own choices and actions, we are sleep walking towards disaster. The impacts on people, wildlife and the environment I have witnessed over the last thirteen years have at times been horrifying. We know what we need to do, I have seen the future with my own eyes, it is a clean renewable alternative. We need keep fossil fuels in the ground, start using energy more wisely and truly valuing what it can provide for humanity. Only then may we stand a chance of avoiding the worst excesses of climate change.

Fourteen years on I have amassed the world’s single largest collection of climate change/renewable energy images which have just been published in an art photographic book entitled “Images From a Warming Planet”. Jonathon Porritt wrote the foreword for the book and called it “An extraordianry collection of images and a powerful call to action”. To view the book go to www.imagesfromawarmingplanet.net

Our central question:

IMPACT STORIES

Every year, we discover natural leaders - students, entrepreneurs, and athletes. They dream to build their own future and we do our best to support them. There are some of our young leaders, symbols of hard work and perseverance:

Alphonse is a young and bright Togolese who participated in our activities in the village of Kpalimé from 2013-2014. Despite facing many obstacles, in particular the absence of a father, he never gave up. We recommended him to the African Leadership Academy (ALA), a school of excellence in South Africa. After two years at ALA, he was accepted by the University of Rochester in the United States where he is studying electrical and computer engineering.

Freddy is one of the most gifted young basketball players we’ve met in Togo. In 2014, we helped him to spend a week at the SEED (a basketball academy in Senegal). Then we sent him to a NBA camp in Burkina Faso. The NBA is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. A few months later, Freddy received a scholarship to pursue his dream at Liberty Christian School in the United States.

Mariette was orphaned by her mother and not recognized by her father. We met her in Lomé. She was captain of an under-18 (U18) Togolese national team that LYSD initiated in 2015 in partnership with the Togolese Basketball Federation. That same year, we provided her with a scholarship for her last year in high school, and she is currently studying English at the University of Lomé.

Flora is a 17-year-old Ivorian girl from Yopougon who left school in seventh grade because her mother was not able to pay her school fees. She discovered basketball in 2015, and the court became an escape and a way to make friends. She has been enrolled in the U18 national team and has found the courage to start taking French lessons. We gave her a scholarship, and she subsequently joined our pool of young educated.

Nono is in high school in Lomé. We offered her a scholarship this season. A member of our U18 selection, she became a young educator in our organization. We count on her leadership and strong values to spark interest among young girls.

Merveille, from the village of Kouvé, entered high school when she was just 13 years old. A natural leader, she does not hesitate to raise her voice to denounce discrimination, especially from the boys in her village. We offered her a scholarship this year, and we believe in her capacity to become a spokeswoman in her community.

We are honoured to witness these children and youth growing day after day, both on and off the court. 

In 2013, an estimated one million Filipinos were plunged into poverty after Typhoon Haiyan sapped $12.9 billion from the national economy and destroyed over a million homes.

No sooner had the 2010 Cyclone Aila devastated coastal areas of Bangladesh than unemployment and poverty levels surged 49 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

Economic strains facing Guatemala after Hurricane Stan in 2005 forced 7.3 percent of affected families to send children to work instead of school. 

Whenever disaster strikes, it leaves more than just a trail of devastation—it also leaves communities further in the grip of poverty.

And yet, when we hear of natural disasters today, their financial cost—that is, the damage inflicted on buildings, infrastructure, and agricultural production—is what catches the headlines. New research, however, suggests that reducing natural disasters to their monetary impact does not paint the whole picture. In fact, it distorts it.

That’s because a simple price tag represents only the losses suffered by people wealthy enough to have something to lose in the first place. It fails to account for the crushing impact of disasters on the world’s poor, who suffer much more in relative terms than wealthier people.

Through this lens, a new report released by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), warns that natural disasters are a greater impediment to ending global poverty than previously understood. Launched this week at COP22, the report, Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters underscores the urgency for climate-smart policies that better protect the world’s most vulnerable. 

  Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President

Compared to their wealthier counterparts, poor people are more likely to live in fragile housing in disaster-prone areas, and work in sectors dangerously susceptible to extreme weather events, like farming and agriculture. They also receive much less government and community support for recovery. The result: the impact of a storm, flood, drought or earthquake is more than twice as significant for poor people than anyone else.

For example, when unprecedented floods affected Mumbai in 2005, poor people lost 60 percent more than their richer neighbors—and when poor people lose the little they have, there are immediate and sometimes irreversible consequences for their health. In Ecuador, poor children exposed in utero to El Niño flooding in 1997-1998 were found to have relatively lower birthweights, shorter statures, and impaired cognitive abilities.

Proposing a new measure for assessing disaster-related damages—one that factors in the unequal burden on the poor—Unbreakable shows that natural disasters currently cost the global economy $520 billion (60 percent more than is usually reported) and force some 26 million people into poverty every year.

But there is hope. Governments can prevent millions of people from falling into extreme poverty by enacting measures that better protect the poor from natural disasters.

The report proposes a “resilience policy” package that would help poor people cope with the consequences of adverse weather and other extreme natural events. This includes early warning systems, improved access to personal banking, insurance policies, and social protection systems (like cash transfers and public works programs) that could help people better respond to and recover from shocks. Unbreakable also calls on governments to make critical investments in infrastructure, dikes, and other means of controlling water levels, and develop appropriate land-use policies and building regulations. These efforts must be specifically targeted to protect the poorest and most vulnerable citizens, not just those with higher-value assets.

The report assesses the expected benefits from these policies in 117 countries. If Angola, for example, were to introduce scalable safety nets to cover its poorest citizens, the government would see gains equaling $160 million a year. Globally, these measures combined would help countries and communities save $100 billion a year and reduce the overall impact of disasters on well-being by 20 percent.

“Countries are enduring a growing number of unexpected shocks as a result of climate change,” said Stephane Hallegatte, a GFDRR lead economist and lead author of the report. “Poor people need social and financial protection from disasters that cannot be avoided. With risk policies in place that we know to be effective, we have the opportunity to prevent millions of people from falling into poverty.”

Efforts to build poor people’s resilience are already gaining ground, the report shows. Only last month, thanks to an innovative insurance program, Haiti, Barbados, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines received a payout of $29 million in support of recovery efforts after suffering the effects of Hurricane Matthew.

Unbreakable is a roadmap to help countries better adapt to climate change, and boost the resilience and prosperity of their most vulnerable citizens. By equipping the most vulnerable with the means to cope, rebuild and rebound we can increase the chance for millions to stay out of extreme poverty. 

Johannesburg, South Africa, 01 December 2016 – Global and local experts and leaders within the renewable energy industry believe the time to champion renewable energy is now – as South Africa’s energy mix is currently being decided and debated.

There is also an urgency to convert a general awareness and understanding about renewable energy into tangible action.

These were some of the key issues teased out and discussed at the U.S. Embassy Pretoria’s Energy21: Exchange Hub on telling the renewable energy story differently, which wrapped today.

Madiba's message on sustainability.

The event, which drew over 60 people working in the renewable energy sector, focused on tactics for telling the renewable energy story differently in South Africa. Participants considered how to best reach, touch, inform and convert new audiences, which is especially relevant following the announcement of South Africa’s updated Integrated Resource Plan 2020-2030 and the resounding success of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Programme (REIPPPP).

“South Africa is at the beginning of a very important renewable energy journey,” said Elizabeth McKay, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy.  “Finding new champions of renewable energy and encouraging more action will require us to shift the renewable energy narrative,” she added.  

Driving this message home at Energy21: Exchange Hub – a partnership between the U.S. Embassy South Africa, World Bank’s Connect4Climate and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – were communications, climate change and renewables experts, including the World Bank’s Max Edkins, Green Cape’s Aman Baboolal, FirstRand Limited’s Madeleine Ronquest and Intellidex’s Colin Anthony.

“South Africa’s renewables story is truly inspirational. We are transitioning towards a renewable future, which opens up opportunities.  By communicating more, we strengthen the possibility of a renewables-focused future. It’s also the most pressing challenge of our time and our generation’s time,” said Edkins, Climate Change and Communications Expert at the World Bank’s Connect4Climate programme.

Max Edkins, Connect4Climate. Photo credits: ENERGY21

David Shelby, Director of Public Engagement at the U.S. State Department, said: “In the last five years South Africa has made tremendous headway for renewables – as evidenced by the highly successful REIPPP programme roll-out.  This, in turn, has played an important part in building the economy and job creation. Now is the time to start telling this story and to communicate the benefits.”

Energy21: Exchange Hub saw communications experts paired with current and future leaders in the private sector, non-government organizations, and government who work on renewable energy policy and promotion to partake in strategic discussions and training.

Through discussing tactics – ranging from strategies for creating compelling, sticky content, reaching rural communities, designing communications campaigns to data visualization – influential industry minds explored new solutions for achieving greater awareness and public support for the renewable energy movement.

ENERGY21 participants share their ideas on how to tell the renewable energy story differently. Photo credits: ENERGY21

One of the main messages about renewable energy: it is no longer as expensive as people think.

Dr. Tobias Bischof-Niemz, Manager of CSIR’s Energy Centre, said solar and wind energy cost competitiveness studies build a strong economic case and sound positioning for renewables. 

This is especially important at a time when the Department of Energy’s updated Integrated Resource Plan will be discussed to determine the country’s energy mix structure.  “Building new energy capacity from wind and solar is less costly than coal. Additionally, these also offer CO2 and water reductions,” said Bischof-Niemz.

“While educating the public on renewables must be grounded in science, there is also the need to work together to create public awareness on renewables, to stimulate community interest – in both urban and rural areas – and engage meaningfully.”

This sentiment was echoed by Edkins who believes that success lies in developing strong partnerships to drive a focused message on renewables. Connect4Climate is already testimony of what can be achieved.

Established partnerships with stakeholders, ranging from non-governmental organisations to the United Nations, have helped to harness Connect4Climate’s mandate of combating climate change through actions driven by solutions.

Bulding bridges and establishing partnerships to better combat climate change. Photo credits: ENERGY21

The conversations and outcomes from Energy21: Exchange Hub will continue with the intention of creating a strong and connected network within the renewable energy and communications industry. Participants acknowledged their shared passion for and commitment to telling the renewable energy story differently, leading the way in creating narratives that touches the hearts and minds of all South Africans.

An agreed Action Plan by all Energy21: Exchange Hub participants will continue its momentum throughout 2017.

However, change really begins with each participant and their will to drive home change in their renewables environment.  “For us, success is for each person within the renewables industry to go home and implement one idea from Energy21 in their respective environments,” said Shelby. 

As the climate continues to change, communities in rural areas are experiencing economic and productive challenges caused by constant adaptations and transformation, specially individual farmers. 

A recent report - On the Frontline: Climate Change & Rural Communities - by The Climate Council reveals that climate change is likely to worsen the systemic disadvantages suffered by rural and regional communities, and further widen the gap between rural and urban areas. It also highlights that the increase in extreme weather events is disproportionately affecting those in rural areas, with serious social, health and economic impacts. 

With #Photo4Climate hashtag you have showed us how Climate Change is affecting #Rural areas. Daryll Peter Griffith is this week's finalist with a great caption exposing the consequences of extreme warm weather. Congratulations!

Take a look at the original picture:

Every month is the hottest month ever recorded, take action on climate change.
Photo Credit: Daryll Peter Griffith

There are several species of Migratory Birds affected by the impacts of Climate Change. Whether in the lowland species extending their ranges upslope in Costa Rica, earlier arrival of migrants in the USA, or even mismatches in the timing of breeding and food supply in the UK. If global warming exceeds 2 º C above pre-industrial levels Scientists have found that bird extinction rates could be as high as 38 percent in Europe, and 72 percent in northeastern Australia, according to a WWF report. 

We have asked you to share a story on how #birdmigration is being affected by Climate Change for our weekly Instagram Challenge. So, we are glad to congratulate Allan F. Castañeda for his great picture: 

#Climatechange one of the reason why birds needs to visit another country this what we called#birdmigration or climate change greatly affects the life of birds. This photo taken at IRRI in Los Baños Laguna Philippines. These Whiskered tern (chlidonias hybridus) certain species only pass through the Philippines as they commute between winter and summer quarters. Extremely large flocks pass through the IRRI fields and nearby areas every year. Many roost and feed on the flooded rice fields, with some birds remaining throughout the winter. In summer, they develop a very attractive breeding plumage and birds in this condition this can sometimes be seen at IRRI. April is also a key month for breeding birds in the Philippines, with most resident species starting to engage in some kind of mating behaviour by the end of the month.
Photo Credit: Allan F. Castañeda