SUSTAINABILITY - The African Mirror

Jan

28

2021

‘Resilient recovery’: Cities link pandemic, climate adaptation responses

SUSTAINABILITY

CAREY L. BIRON Cities across the globe pledged on Monday to use their post-pandemic recovery plans to bolster ways to adapt to the growing risks posed by climate change. The 1000 Cities Adapt Now initiative, launched by several non-governmental organizations and a U.N. agency, will initially start operating in 100 urban areas but eventually expand to 1,000, organizers said at the opening of the two-day virtual Climate Adaptation Summit. The project was developed amid concern that adaptation had received relatively weaker attention in the international climate discussion, and it will now use the issue to drive an inclusive and resilient post-pandemic…

Jan

27

2021

By The African Mirror

Crafting COVID-19 recovery plans to recycle more could slash emissions

SUSTAINABILITY

MICHAEL TAYLOR COVID-19 relief and recovery plans aimed at recycling and reusing more of the billions of tonnes of materials consumed each year could slash planet-heating emissions and limit the impacts of climate change, researchers said on Tuesday. By developing and promoting ways to reduce the amount of minerals, fossil fuels, metals and biomass used in new products, greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by 39%, or 22.8 billion gigatonnes annually, said a report by Amsterdam-based social enterprise Circle Economy. "Governments are making huge decisions that will shape our climate future," CEO Martijn Lopes Cardozo said in a statement. "They…

Jan

25

2021

By The African Mirror

World leaders urged to learn from pandemic in adapting to climate change

SUSTAINABILITY

MEGAN ROWLING THE COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world what it is like to go through a dangerous emergency of the kind that could occur if climate change accelerates - and offers lessons on how to respond, the head of the U.N. climate science panel said. Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the health crisis was "a foretaste of what climate change could do to our society, to nature and to our lives". "Both climate change and COVID-19 have shown us the risks of an unthinking and rapacious approach to nature and its resources,"…

Sep

08

2021

By The African Mirror

Insights for African countries from the latest climate change projections

SUSTAINABILITY

THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – a body of the UN tasked with providing scientific information on climate change – has released a major new report, pulling together evidence from a wide range of current and ancient climate observations. It’s the most up-to-date understanding of climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science. VICTOR ONGOMA, Assistant Professor, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique It is crucial that we have a good understanding of the findings as they give an indication of what our future could look like. According to the report, global warming is evident, with each of…

Jan

24

2021

By The African Mirror

Step up adaptation to climate change now or risk ‘enormous toll’, scientists warn

SUSTAINABILITY

MEGAN ROWLING MORE than 3,000 scientists on Friday called for a far bigger global push to protect people and nature from the effects of a heating planet, even as researchers estimated funding to adapt to climate change has dropped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement, the scientists - including five Nobel laureates - warned that a failure to respond to rising climate risks, as governments try to revive their economies from coronavirus woes, would have severe consequences, especially for the poorest. "Unless we step up and adapt now, the results will be increasing poverty, water shortages, agricultural losses and…

Sep

09

2021

By The African Mirror

Madagascar faces one of the world’s first climate change famines

SUSTAINABILITY

KIM HARRISBERG THE cracked red earth and sunken eyes of gaunt children, their bellies swollen from acute malnutrition, bear witness to the devastation being wrought by Madagascar's worst drought in four decades. As the south of the island is pushed to the brink of famine, climate change researchers say such harrowing images should serve as an alarm bell over the need for drastic action to cut planet-heating emissions and climate-proof global food systems. According to the United Nations, more than 1.14 million people in the south of the Indian Ocean country are food-insecure due to the drought, which some experts have blamed…

Sep

10

2021

By The African Mirror

African tropical mountain forests store far more carbon than previously thought – new research

SUSTAINABILITY

TROPICAL forests are well known for being the “lungs” of our planet. Through photosynthesis, the trees in these forests produce oxygen and remove enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to mitigate global warming. The world’s most famous tropical forests found on lowlands, like those of the Amazon or Borneo, are celebrated for their ability to store carbon. The Amazon rainforest itself holds up to five years’ worth of human carbon emissions in its trees and soil. A tropical mountain forest in Bwindi, Uganda. Author provided While tropical forests can also be found on tropical mountains such as…

Sep

08

2021

By The African Mirror

Renewable energy projects in rural Ghana have some built-in limitations

SUSTAINABILITY

RENEWABLE energy technologies like solar lanterns, solar panels and biogas digesters offer the prospect of affordable power in remote communities. For the last 30 years, international organisations have been involved in projects to make these technologies available to users in African countries. Mainly this has been done free of charge and has included efforts to build local capacity and reform policy. DR. BASIL AMUZU-SEFORDZI, Postgrad Research Fellow at UWA AfREC, The University of Western Australia But despite these efforts, internationally funded renewable energy projects have often failed after they withdrew their support. In the last decade, international organisations have been…

Sep

07

2021

By The African Mirror

COP26 summit urged to prioritise adaptation as ‘climate emergency’ surges

SUSTAINABILITY

MEGAN ROWLING ON the heels of last month's warning from the U.N. climate science panel that extreme weather and rising seas are hitting faster than expected, leaders called on Monday for more money and political will to help people adapt to the new reality. At a dialogue in Rotterdam convened by the Global Center on Adaptation, more than 50 ministers and heads of climate organisations and development banks called for November's COP26 climate talks to treat adaptation as "urgent". In a communique, they said adaptation - which ranges from building higher flood defences to growing more drought-tolerant crops and relocating…

Jan

20

2021

By The African Mirror

Kenya braces for return of devastating locust swarms

SUSTAINABILITY

SWARMS of desert locusts have reappeared in East Africa to the dismay of farmers and villagers who witnessed them wreak havoc on their crops and pasture in previous years. Locust swarms first soared in number in late 2019, as a result of unusual weather patterns amplified by climate change. They dispersed eastwards from Yemen leaving Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia hardest hit. "In Kenya, several immature swarms are arriving every day and spreading west throughout northern and central areas," the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement. "Swarms have now been seen in seven counties ... compared to…