Africa-wide Civil Society Climate Change Initiative for Policy Dialogues - ACCID - News Digest -

Week ending 5 June 2009

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Communique: SADC Agriculture and Food Security ministers 1 June 2009 Gaborone: SADC Ministers responsible for Agriculture and Food Security met on May 21 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of South Africa, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, hosted the meeting. A three-day meeting of Senior Officials preceded the meeting of the Ministers... Climate change information overload? Irin, 1 June 2009 Johannesburg: Millions, possibly even billions of people will be affected by the impact of climate change, some reports say; gloomy ones tell you it is already happening, more optimistic ones say it will happen by the end of the century... Congo Basin forest management "successful" afrol News, 1 June 2009 Environmentalists celebrate the "rapid progress" made in saving the precious rainforests of the Congo Basin, second only to the Amazon. Vast areas are now effectively protected and sustainably and responsibly managed... Climate change huge challenge for Africa - minister Reuters, 1 June 2009 Nairobi: The challenges facing Africa to fight climate change are enormous and costs are huge though hard to quantify, South Africa's environment minister said on Friday... UNEP head applauds Kagame's Green Economy address Africa Science News Agency, 1 June 2009 Kigali: Putting the environment at the centre of Africa's economic future must be a priority for the Continent, the President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, urged at an historic meeting of finance and environment ministers. In a wide-ranging speech underlining the links between prosperity, development and improved management of Africa's environmental assets... South African government edging towards renewable sources Inter Press Service, 2 June 2009 Cape Town: South Africa is slowly moving towards exploring renewable energy sources, having set itself a target of three percent of energy being generated from renewable sources by 2013... ERA 2009: Developing African agriculture through regional value chains UNECA, 2 June 2009 Addis Ababa: The Economic Report on Africa 2009 (ERA 2009) is organized into two parts. Part I examines global economic developments and their implication for Africa, analyses recent economic and social trends and highlights emerging development challenges to the continent in 2008... Risk and poverty in a changing climate: ISDR 2009 Prevention Web, 2 June 2009 United Nations: This first edition of the United Nations Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction is not only a comprehensive review and analysis of the natural hazards menacing humanity. It also provides new and arresting evidence on how, where and why disaster risk is increasing globally... Namibia: Integrated land use curbs effects of climate change Namibia Economist, 2 June 2009 Windhoek: Climate change and resulting sea conditions can financially cripple businesses - especially those relying directly on seawater. The evidence is clear. Several oyster farmers and other industries took a knock and some even went under during the extreme red tide outbreak in March 2008... Farmers the missing link in climate change talks The East African, 2 June 2009 Nairobi: Despite its contribution to climate change, agriculture has been relegated to the backseat in global warming negotiations, and farmers are not considered an important link in the fight against effects of greenhouse gas emissions. US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a global farm policy think-tank, says that unless this thinking changes, the war against greenhouse gas emissions is unlikely to be won... We know what to do: why don't we do it?' The Guardian, 3 June 2009 London: Wangari Maathai's office in fuming, downtown Nairobi is full of citations and mementos, but there is one special photograph. It's of her and Barack Obama planting an olive tree in Uhuru park in the city centre in October 2006. It could be any two celebrities posing for a routine photo call, but there is a strong connection between the spiffy, young American senator on his way to the White House and the flamboyant older woman dressed in canary yellow who had just become the first African woman to win a Nobel prize... USAID partnership with RAED on climate change and water issues USAID, 3 June 2009 Rabat: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Arab Network for Environment and Development (RAED) announced a strategic partnership working to increase regional capacity and awareness in the Middle East and Northern African (MENA) region... Mozambique: Power station will meet environmental standards Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique, 3 June 2009 Maputo: The Brazilian mining giant Vale has pledged that the coal-fired power station it intends to build in the western Mozambican province of Tete will meet stringent environmental standards... How Africa can earn billions from carbon trading New African, 3 June 2009 London: China, India, Brazil and a host of developed countries are earning billions of dollars a year from trading carbon credits. Africa is earning hardly anything at all, athough, by rights, it should be getting the most. The problem is that few on the continent understand how this complex system works... Drought, climate change eating into region's GDP East African, 3 June 2009 Nairobi: East Africa's periodic drought costs the region between five and eight per cent of its gross domestic product, a recent conference in Kigali for African finance and environment ministers heard last week. According to the conference, the more the droughts and floods become frequent, the more they have a direct long term fiscal liability on the East African Community, with a toll of more than two per cent GDP per annum... IOM: Migration, climate change and the environment IOM, 3 June 2009 This policy brief has presented IOM's thinking on the issue of migration, climate change and the environment as well as the Organization's perception of the challenges and opportunities. With a cross-cutting issue such as this, no one agency or stakeholder alone holds the key to the solutions... Climate change threatens African farmland - study Reuters, 4 June 2009 Washington: Climate change could cost the African continent more farmland than the United States uses to plant its eight major field crops combined, according to a study published in the June issue of Environmental Science and Policy. Farming on up to 1 million square kilometers (247 million acres) of land in Africa could subside by 2050 as climate change makes areas too hot and dry for growing crops, the study said... Nigeria leads in gas emission reduction campaign ThisDay, 4 June 2009 Lagos: Nigeria is on the verge of taking the lead as Africa's highest contributor to the global greenhouse gas emmission reduction campaign. According to statistics given by Head of Climate Change Unit of the Federal Ministry of Environment, Mr Victor Fodake, at a media briefing on World Environment Day in Abuja, Nigeria has through the gas gathering projects being executed by two oil companies, Pan-Ocean and Addax , been able to earn 560million euros... Funding plea to help poor tackle climate change The Telegraph, 4 June 2009 London: The International Development Committee said the issue of global warming should be central to the Government's work in developing countries. And more funding - on top of existing budgets - needs to be committed to tackle problems caused by climate change. A report by the MPs said that in Africa, changes to rainfall were already affecting food production, while rising temperatures are increasing exposure to malaria... Nairobi Declaration on the African Process for Combating Climate Change UNEP, 4 June 2009 We, African Ministers of Environment, having met in Nairobi from 25 to 29 May 2009 at the special session on climate change of the African Ministerial Conference on the environment... UN report says Angola plans to move from ethanol to sugar production Macauhub, 5 June 2009 Lisbon: Investment in renewable energies in Africa in 2008 remained low, with Angola set to change its focus from ethanol to sugar production and Mozambique on the verge of being overtaken by neighbouring Tanzania, according to a United Nations (UN) report... Comesa sets up fund for carbon reduction projects The Herald, 5 June 2009 Harare: COMESA is setting up a fund to finance carbon reduction programmes and other climatic change related initiatives, secretary-general, Dr Sindiso Ngwenya has said. Dr Ngwenya told a business council meeting at the Comesa 13th Summit of Heads of States and Government yesterday that the funds would be accessed through a yet to be created division to be run by the PTA Bank...

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