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Africa-wide Civil Society Climate Change Initiative for Policy Dialogues - ACCID
- News Digest - |
| Week ending 26 June 2009 |
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New fund for innovative knowledge sharing launched by AfricaAdapt
R4D, 22 June 2009 London: Africa's poor and vulnerable communities rarely have the opportunity to share their valuable experience and learn from others in broader or more formal exchanges of knowledge on climate change adaptation. The AfricaAdapt network is launching its new Knowledge Sharing Innovation Fund promoting new ways of sharing knowledge that can help address this problem... Protecting the world's most expensive tree Inter Press Service, 22 June 2009 Moshi: With the snow-capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro providing a backdrop under simmering tropical sunshine, a group of women in Mijongweni village break into song. The song, in Swahili, praises the benefits of protecting the environment and living in harmony with nature for the survival of generations... Kenya launches programme to fight desertification Africa Science News Agency, 22 June 2009 Nairobi: During this year's World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, the Kenyan government unveiled an ambitious programme to address land degradation in arid areas. This is in line with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) which requires member states to come up with national actions programmes to address land degradation and desertification... Uganda: Government asked to begin irrigation schemes UGPulse.com, 23 June 2009 Kampala: The President of the Uganda National Farmers Federation, Frank Tumwebaze has asked the government to begin irrigation schemes in the country to counter the challenge of climatic change that the country is currently experiencing... 15th ECOWAS-EU Ministerial Troika: climate change issues in final communiqué African Press Organisation, 23 June 2009 Luxembourg: Ministers underscored the importance of 2009 as a crucial year for the formulation of a global and comprehensive response to the challenges of climate change. They agreed to cooperate closely in order to reach an agreement on climate change by the end of this year in Copenhagen. They stressed that developed countries should continue to take the lead by committing to deep emission reduction cuts in the medium and longer term... The Swedish Presidency of the European Union: climate change eG Monitor, 23 June 2009 This brings me (Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt) to our next important priority - combating climate change and reaching an international climate agreement in Copenhagen to achieve this: As I stand here today, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets continue to melt and sea levels continue to rise... Small farmers could cash in on carbon monitoring SciDev.Net , 23 June 2009 Nairobi: Developing world communities could become part of the multi-billion dollar carbon market if a project to assess the amount of carbon locked up in soils proves successful. The three-year Carbon Benefits Project, launched by the UN Environment Programme, will measure carbon in the land and trees of small farms in China, western Kenya, Niger and Nigeria... Policy-makers face daunting task in boosting farming Business Daily Africa, 23 June 2009 Nairobi: The government faces a delicate juggling act in designing a food security strategy that will keep the imports flowing in the short term and provide incentive to farmers to increase the acreage under food crop... FAO: Africa’s sleeping giant FAO, 23 June 2009 Rome: A vast stretch of African savannah land that spreads across 25 countries has the potential to turn several African nations into global players in bulk commodity production, according to a study just published by FAO and the World Bank. The book, entitled Awakening Africa's Sleeping Giant - Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond, arrives at its positive conclusions by comparing the region with northeast Thailand and the Cerrado region of Brazil... Ghana’s environment refugees Financial Times, 24 June 2009 The heart of Nandom is a fork in the road. It is here, in one of the northernmost towns in Ghana, that the buses come and go. You would call it a station if it was anything more than a triangle of reddish dust, surrounded by fast-food stalls, general stores and the rural bank. Once a week, a market sets up... Winds of Change: Climate change, poverty and environment in Malawi Oxfam, 24 June 2009 Lilongwe: A wind of climate change is blowing through the southern African nation of Malawi, bringing confusion to fisherfolk and farmers alike. "Previously water would flood mainly at the peak of the rainfall season and mainly along the river banks. These days, floods occur anytime during the rainy season... The case for agriculture in Copenhagen Irin, 24 June 2009 Johannesburg: Gerald C. Nelson, a Senior Research Fellow at the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), makes a case for agriculture in the first of a series of commentaries by various experts in the run-up to the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen... Mathai: Africa must protect forests to mitigate global warming Daily Nation, 24 June 2009 Nairobi: I recently attended a Nobel laureates symposium at St James Palace in London, where a memorandum emphasised the need for action based on scientific evidence on climate change. That memo called for reduction of emissions to at least 50 per cent by 2050 on a 1990 baseline, with interim reductions of at least 25-40 per cent by 2020... Obama urges Congress to move swiftly on climate change bill The Guardian, 24 June 2009 London: Barack Obama put his presidential prestige on the line to urge Congress to pass climate change legislation today, using the high visibility of a White House press conference to take on widespread concerns about the costs of moving to cleaner sources of energy. The intervention from Obama comes on the eve of a high stakes vote in Congress on a climate change bill... Ban: New climate change deal must be fair Business Daily Africa, 25 June 2009 Nairobi: This December, governments will meet in Copenhagen to finalize a new climate change agreement. It is essential that they Seal the Deal. It must be comprehensive. It must be fair. It must be ambitious... Green building council hopes to launch pilot rating tool for shopping centres Engineering News, 25 June 2009 Johannesburg: The Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) has started work on the second suite of Green Star SA rating tools, for retail buildings and shopping centres, with some R1,5-million in funding raised to develop the tool... Ghana: Government re-births national climate change committee Ghana Web, 25 June 2009 Accra: The National Climate Change Committee (NCCC) was on Wednesday re-inaugurated under the Chairmanship of Mr Edward Osei Nsenkyire, a Former Chief Director of the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST). The Committee has been charged with the responsibility to develop strategies to deal with the current challenges of climate change and also develop a comprehensive National Action Plan... Running a temperature: climate change will soon be the world's greatest health crisis Foreign Policy, 25 June 2009 We tend to think of climate change as an environmental issue, which, of course, it is. Current scientific findings on Arctic ice melting, rising sea levels, greenhouse gas emissions, and ocean acidity suggest that during this century, the earth's average surface temperature will surpass the supposedly "safe" threshold of 2 degrees celsius above preindustrial level... India: Growing in a responsible way Business Standard, 25 June 2009 New Delhi: The apple economy of Himachal is getting hugely destabilised. Lower snowfall and higher temperatures are making it difficult to grow apples at below 6,000 ft where they have been grown for almost a hundred years. The Gangotri glacier, which ensures a perennial flow in the Ganga, is melting... Migration and climate change: A new (under) class of travellers The Economist, 26 June 2009 Addis Ababa: The airstrip at Lokichoggio, in the scorched wastes of north Kenya, was once ground zero for food aid. During Sudan's civil war, flights from here kept millions of people alive. The warehouses are quieter now, but NGOs keep a toehold, in case war restarts-and to deal with what pundits call the "permanent emergency" of "environmentally induced" migration... Pan-African parliamentary climate change conference begins Cameroon Tribune, 26 June 2009 Yaounde: The National Assembly of Cameroon will this week host the Pan-African Parliamentary Conference on climate change. The Yaounde conference will be a forum for the assembly of Parliaments of the Africa-Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) and European Union for the African region to put in place harmonised ideas and a common stand... Ecobank explores prospects in carbon market Ghananian Chronicle, 26 June 2009 Accra: Ecobank in collaboration with the World Bank /IFD are putting together synergy in exploring the opportunities there are in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects evaluation and carbon financing structure aimed at ensuring a low carbon economy. The three day workshop underway in Accra... Climate proofing the Zambezi Irin, 26 June 2009 Johannesburg: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has launched a US$8m initiative to help build the disaster resilience of 600,000 people living along the Zambezi river in seven southern African countries... GRZ signs MoU with Netherlands on climate change programmes Lusaka Times, 26 June 2009 Lusaka: The Ministry of Tourism Environment and Natural Resources has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with Peace Parks Foundation of Netherlands on the implementation of climate change programmes in Zambia... |
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Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN)
Africa-wide Civil Society Climate Change Initiative for Policy Dialogues - ACCID
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