Climate Action

Zimbabweans Become Weapons Against Climate Change

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) – Carrying a gigantic sack full of plastics debris picked up from rubbish pits, 33-year-old Herbert Mbedzi trudges around downtown Harare, the Zimbabwean capital rummaging dustbins for some more plastic waste for resale to recyclers.

Mbedzi claims that he has never been employed in his life and has now found a reliable source of income in dumped plastic junk, which has become “like gold” to him. “I have realised that my earnings each week from selling the plastics that I collect come to around 80 dollars because I have found reliable and constant customers like local firms involved in recycling plastics products,” Mbedzi told IDN.

: Jeffrey Moyo; THE WORLD; Africa; 02 September 2016

Photo: Heliconius doris Linnaeus butterfly of Costa Rica. Credit: Wikimedia Com-mons.

Costa Rica Setting its Sights on Sustainable Development

By Jose Rafael Quesada*

SAN JOSE (IDN) – Costa Rica, a small Central American country with a population of barely 5 million inhabitants, has a high human development index (ranking 69th worldwide) and is considered a consolidated democracy in Latin America.

High investments in education, good development of social security and high levels of openness and competitiveness in international markets make Costa Rica a candidate for membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

However, the country is still experiencing serious problems in the area of endemic poverty, a low level of efficiency in the construction of infrastructure, high levels of state indebtedness and high indicators of tax evasion.

: IDN-INPS Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 30 August 2016

Photo: Food security in the face of climate change. Credit: Obrazek Duzy | science.studentnews.eu

Climate Change Threatens USD2.5 trillion Losses in Agriculture

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) - Global warming threatens to cause a huge economic damage to agriculture, adding up to the annual amount of roughly 0.8 percent of global GDP by the end of the century, which translates to losses of $2.5 trillion dollars, warns a new study.

But further trade liberalization in agricultural commodities could reduce financial damage globally by 65 percent, to 0.3 percent of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product), says Miodrag Stevanovićby, lead author of the study by a team of scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

: Jutta Wolf; SUSTAINABILITY; Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture; 25 August 2016

Photo: A sandstorm hits the UN mission in El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan. The UN has installed carlogs in its vehicles there to measure idling. Credit: Adrian Dragnea, UNAMID.

Waiting for the UN Secretariat to Pursue Climate-Neutrality

By Franz Baumann * | Reproduced courtesy of PassBlue

The author is a former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and special adviser on environment and peace operations. This article originally appeared with the headline: A Sorry State of Affairs: The UN Secretariat Has No Climate Plan.

NEW YORK (IDN | Passblue) - How green is the United Nations’ own environmental policy?

Shepherding the Paris climate agreement to conclusion in December 2015 has been a major achievement of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The agreement got more than 190 states to commit to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2 degrees centigrade, above pre-industrial levels.

: Franz Baumann; UN INSIDER; 05 August 2016

Photo: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (right) meets with Erlan Idrissov, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

NEWSBRIEF: Kazakhstan Takes Paris Climate Agreement Forward

TORONTO | NEW YORK (IDN) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has commended Kazakhstan for signing the Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The signing comes as Kazakhstan prepares to host EXPO 2017, which will focus on sustainable energy for the future.

In a meeting with Kazakhstan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Erlan Idrissov, Ban congratulated the Central Asian country on its June 28 election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.

: J C Suresh; UN INSIDER; 05 August 2016

Photo: Heads of delegations at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21), which led to the signing of the Paris Agreement. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

UN Special Event to Fast-Track Climate Treaty Ratifications

By Rizwy Raheem

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who hails the Climate Change agreement as one of the political legacies of his 10-year tenure in office, is hosting a special event in September urging member states to deposit their instruments of ratification so that the treaty can come into force before he steps down end December.

The invitation for the September 21 event has been sent out to world leaders who will be attending the annual General Assembly sessions.

The agreement, which was finalized in Paris in December 2015, will enter into force 30 days after at least 55 countries – accounting for 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions – deposit their instruments of ratification or acceptance with the Secretary-General.

: Rizwy Raheem; UN INSIDER; 21 July 2016

Photo: A view of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue. Copyright: BMUB | Thomas Trutschel

New Partnership to Implement Paris Climate Change Agreement

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) - Many developing countries have made their first ever commitment to complying with climate targets with the adoption of the Paris Agreement endorsed in December 2015. A new partnership – initiated jointly by the German Ministry for the Environment and that for Economic Cooperation and Development together with the World Resources Institute (WRI) – now aims to help them transform these targets into specific strategies and measures.

The initiative aims at supporting developing countries in specifying and implementing their nationally determined contributions and help them unify existing climate and development goals with a view to achieving greater harmonisation of various donor programmes. The partnership will be officially launched at the Marrakesh climate conference (COP22) in November.

: Jutta Wolf; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 08 July 2016

Photo: Dugda Woreda, East Showa zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia, an area severely affected by the drought. Photo: OCHA/ Charlotte Cans

UN Fighting to Fend Off ‘The Little Boy’ and ‘The Little Girl’

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | ROME (IDN) - Three Rome-based UN agencies are keen to avert further havoc wreaked by the twins with euphemistic names – ‘The Little Boy’ and ‘The Little Girl’ – and are calling for governments and the international community to ramp up efforts to safeguard livelihoods of some 100 million people around the world.

“The new pattern of climate events (better known by their Spanish designations, El Niño and La Niña) is exposing weaknesses in our preparedness, in international and government systems and in community infrastructure,” says the newly-appointed United Nations Special Envoy on El Niño & Climate Ambassador Macharia Kamau.

: Jutta Wolf; UN INSIDER; 06 July 2016

Ghana Still Target of Lethal e-Waste Dumping

LONDON (IDN | GIN) – Digital dumping ground, world’s largest e-waste dump – whatever you call it, Agbogbloshie, a former wetland and suburb of Ghanaian capital Accra, is one the top ten “worst polluted” places on earth where tonnes of discarded electronics, refrigerators, microwaves and televisions, also known as e-waste, end up decomposing in a massive scrap heap.

"Mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic – these are the four most toxic substances [in the world], and they are found in e-waste residues in very large quantities," Atiemo Sampson, an environmental researcher at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, who has conducted several studies of the Agbogbloshie site, said in an interview with the BBC.

Exposure to these toxins is known to cause a whole range of illnesses from cancers to heart disease and respiratory illnesses.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 31 May 2016

Photo: "You captured the winds of change in Paris," outgoing UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres told the delegates. Courtesy: UNFCCC.

Bonn Session Takes Forward Landmark UN Climate Agreement

By Rita Joshi

BONN (IDN) - The first UN climate change meeting since governments adopted the landmark Paris Agreement in December 2015 concluded on May 26 with “a set of positive outcomes that will support the treaty’s widely anticipated early entry into force and stronger, sustained action world-wide into the future”.

Affirming this optimistic claim by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), David Waskow, International Climate Director of the World Resources Institute (WRI) said: “This is the only formal round of international negotiations between the Paris climate summit last December and the forthcoming climate summit in Marrakech, Morocco (COP22) in November.”

The nearly two-week long gathering saw countries push ahead with implementing stronger climate action and constructing what the UNFCCC called the global climate regime “rule book” in order to guarantee the treaty’s fairness, transparency and balance between nations.