By Elizabeth Maruma Mrema
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 15 2023 – There has never been a time in human history when collaboration between nations was more sorely needed than now, and there is no place that would benefit more from it than in Africa.

As 54 of our Environment Ministers gather this week (August 14-15) in Addis Ababa for the next session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), their agendas are packed with a long list of burning environmental issues. They will need to act in unison and with determination to achieve positive movement on these challenges.

We live in an era of climate change-induced hunger, of collapsing ecosystems – the continent’s forests are disappearing, and we face the bleak prospect of dwindling biodiversity.

We experience killer floods from Senegal to Nigeria to Malawi, Mozambique to South Africa, lethal heat and fires in North Africa, and drought across East Africa, and suffocating air and plastic pollution from Cairo to Ouagadougou.

As nature erodes, food security is undermined by climate-induced locust attacks, conflicts between humans and wildlife closer encounters with some species that risk the spread of deadly viruses.

But we also live in an exciting era of opportunities, one of information and innovation, and one in which African policy leadership – nationally, regionally and continentally – is increasingly cognizant of the challenges presented by the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution and waste.

The inauguration of the Nineteenth ordinary session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (#AMCEN), in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Credit: Richard Munang, UNEP

Cognizant that despite the African continent contributing the least to climate change, Africans are already facing some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis, which must be urgently addressed.

This awareness is already translated into actions, from the Tarfaya and Ras Ghareb wind farms in Morocco and Egypt, through massive solar projects in South Africa, Namibia, and Ghana, to pioneering use of geothermal energy in Kenya. Restoration initiatives like the Great Green Wall aim to halt desertification and support livelihoods across the entire width of Africa. And a majority of African governments already banned single-use plastics, albeit with mixed results.

In September, we expect leaders to convene in Nairobi for an Africa Climate Summit and in November, a meeting – also in Nairobi – will continue negotiations on a global treaty to end plastic pollution.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai will cap a year of multilateral and national work to strengthen global action on climate, while one year following the historic Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, we’ll be closely monitoring its implementation.

At these meetings, Ministers and their governments will flesh out the details of a legally binding international agreement – will single-use plastic polluters have to own the brunt of its costs?

They will address natural resources – how will the extraction of critical minerals benefit a rapid global shift away from carbonized economy, while respecting human rights and maximizing the economic benefits to resource-rich nations?

Other issues may be less contentious, but are vital for a just transition and a sustainable environment for Africans: a common African demand for climate finance and contributions for a fund for the loss and damage resulting from the climate crisis carries more weight than such a demand made by individual governments.

When setting up early warning systems against extreme weather events, like those adopted decades ago in Bangladesh, it is much more beneficial to gather data across regions and even the entire continent. When it concerns biodiversity, protected areas restricted along the lines of national borders can overlook how endangered species move about and neglect conserving crucial corridors.

We are not short of forums to churn out resolutions – it is just critical that decisions already taken are implemented. The African Forum of Environment Protection Agencies is a forum to enhance the implementation of important work that is already underway.

And that must guide the ministerial meeting in Addis Ababa. As the seat of the African Union, it is the ideal location to advance a united African approach. Decades ago, Kwame Nkrumah, former President of Ghana, said: “We face neither East nor West; We face forward.”

More recently, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, similarly said of a Climate Ambition Summit next month in New York: “There will be no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”

And Kenyan President William Ruto, during the last Africa Energy Forum in Nairobi (home to the UN Environment Programme) reminded us: “This is not the time for finger-pointing and passing blame. We want to have a conversation of equals.”

To deliberate as equals is essential within Africa, as it is for when Africa’s leaders embark on engagements and partnerships beyond the continent. It means grounding positions and commitments in science and on a breadth of issues that are too important to the continent’s people to be split on.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema of Tanzania, is Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, Aug 15 2023 – As torrential rains, cloudbursts, floods, and landslides continue to wreak colossal damage and claim lives in Himachal Pradesh, India’s Himalayan foothill provinces. The question everyone is asking is: why is this happening?

Himachal Pradesh received 250 millimetres or ten inches of rain in just four days, between 7 to 11 July, which accounted for almost 30 percent of the total monsoon rainfall in a year. This sent mountain rivers spilling over their banks into villages and towns and caused widespread flash flooding, mud, and landslides.

Over the whole month of July, the State received 71 percent excess of 438 mm actual rainfall against 255.9 mm normal rainfall. It is the second-highest rainfall in 43 years, since 1980, according to the government’s meteorological department.

Himachal Pradesh has witnessed a six-time increase in major landslides in the past two years, with 117 occurring in 2022 as compared to 16 in 2020, according to data compiled by the State disaster management department.

This year until now, the state witnessed 79 landslides and 53 flash flood incidents, with the monsoon only halfway, arriving in late June, as per the developing data.

There have been 223 deaths from these disasters to date. Cloudbursts and losses continue in Himachal Pradesh. Even on August 10, a family of 5 were buried under their collapsed home.

Is Faulty Ecological Development Worsening the Damage?

A video that has gone viral worldwide sums up not just the magnitude of destruction but answers some of the reasons why. The video opens with loud panic calls as a thickened river of muck and huge logs swerve downhill monstrously into a narrow village lane flanked by rows of shops in Thunag village in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh.

Locals claimed the trees are Himalayan Cedars chopped down in tens of thousands to widen highways as the government rapidly develops its mid-hills as go-to summer holiday destinations for tourism.

Trees from forest land cleared for roads, tunnels and hydro-power dams are disposed on hill slopes, in rivers banks and streams along with the earthen muck and debris, said Tikender Singh Panwar, a city administrator who had earlier held office.

The course of the rivers has narrowed down, and the riverbeds filled up with silt, causing them to break banks much sooner than they normally would when torrential rains come.

Both tourism and hydro-electricity sectors are the highest earners for the government and are currently being developed on priority.

The planned development is responsible for this colossal damage, is not so much climate shift, Panwar categorically says. An urban specialist and earlier deputy mayor of Shimla, the State’s summer capital, Panwar, says the focus of Himachal Pradesh, with a fragile Himalayan ecosystem, is on (risky) exploitation of natural resources of water, forest, and nature to pull in more State income.

Warming in Asia has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Chart indicating the warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 vs 1961–1990 period. CREDIT: Courtesy WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report

Traditionally, mountain regions for building infrastructure were not cut with vertical slits but terraced to minimise instability in these geologically vulnerable regions. Unfortunately, in a hurry to complete projects, mountains have been cut into vertically, leading to landslides, according to Panwar.

The government’s Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority agrees. “Vulnerability of the geologically young and not-so-stable steep slopes in various Himalayan ranges has been increasing at a rapid rate in the recent decade due to inappropriate human activity like deforestation, road cutting, terracing and changes in agriculture crops requiring more intense watering.”

Land use change is another trigger being viewed as causing a natural disaster to become more damaging. Spreading concrete infrastructures, including “river-view” hotels and homestays, encroach on the riverbanks and basins.

Cement plants have proliferated to meet the demand for leap-frogging constructions.

When more rainfall lands in an area than the ground can absorb, or it falls in areas with a lot of impermeable surfaces like concrete and road asphalt that prevent absorption, the water runs downhill, gathering force and everything on its way, turning streams and rivers into raging torrents. It seeks the lowest point in a potential pathway, often reclaiming its own encroached space – the river basin.

In India’s mostly unplanned urban areas, these often are roads, parking lots, slum settlements, and even multi-storied shops and homes. Changes in land use and land cover contribute to acerbate disaster damage.

Sand mined illegally from riverbanks to keep pace with the high demand from construction activities could also have played a role in the devastation that rivers caused in Himachal Pradesh, environmental activists said.

Question Mark on Hydro-Power Projects in Fragile Himalayan Region

Hydropower is the biggest source of income for Himachal Pradesh, with the national government having a major stake. The State has five major rivers. It sells electricity to other states. Rural electrification, too, remains a major focus. But the environmental cost of the dams in the Himalayan region may be high and already being experienced, said activists.

The State’s hydroelectricity potential is high, around 27,436 megawatts, which is 25 percent of the national potential. Of this, 10,519 MW is harnessed so far. More projects with lengthy tunnels to channelise river flow are being added quickly. “Sometimes the course of rivers was diverted to build dams for hydro-power projects. This is like playing with nature, says Panwar.

By 2030, some 1088 hydropower projects are planned to generate 22640 MW of electricity, according to Panwar. India has committed to achieving 500 Gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030.

This is raising alarm bells for more impending disasters.

In a Warming Asia: The Role of Climate Change in Increasing Water Disasters

When the cloudburst in the Thunag area dumped torrential rains, locals said they had no warning. But cloudbursts are characteristically localised, and sudden torrential rainstorm phenomena, categorised when rainfall is 100 millimetres per hour, have been increasing.

Cloudbursts occur when warm air currents block rain from falling, causing an accumulation of moisture. When the upward air currents become weak, the cloud dumps rain.

Flash flooding similarly occurs after excessive rainfall pours down in less than six hours. Both are unexpected and often catch victims unprepared.

The role of climate change is becoming increasingly evident in these types of deluges across continents.

The simplest part of the explanation for a complex phenomenon is that warmer temperatures lead to increased evaporation. This leads to extra moisture in the atmosphere, which in turn leads to heavy rainfall, especially when two weather systems coincide in a high-altitude, mountainous region. This is what happened in Himachal Pradesh in early July.

A low-pressure weather system carrying moisture all the way from the Mediterranean Sea to northern India, known as a Western Disturbance, coincided with the normal monsoon system, together resulting in torrential rain. This is not abnormal and, as such, not attributable to changing climate.

However, studies by scientists around the world show that the climate shift is intensifying the water cycle and will continue to intensify as the planet warms. A number of factors are intensifying the water cycle, but one of the most important is that warming temperatures raise the upper limit on the amount of moisture in the air. That increases the potential for more rain.

An international climate assessment in 2021 documented an increase in both wet extremes, including more intense rainfall over most regions, and dry extremes. These will continue to increase with future warming.

In India’s Himalayan region, with its complex terrain and varied weather patterns, deep, intense convective clouds form under normal circumstances. However, studies find instances of deep convection have increased over recent years. Sixty-five percent area in the Himalayan States now shows a trend towards ‘daily extreme rainfall’ categorised when 15 cm of rain falls in 24 hours. Climate change is thought to be one of the main causes of this, according to Madhavan Rajeevan, a senior retired official of India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences. “This can have severe consequences,” he says.

According to the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), Asia is the world’s most disaster-impacted region; 83 percent of the 81 weather, climate, and water-related disasters in Asia in 2022 were flood and storm events. More than 50 million people were directly affected.

WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report released in July said Asia, the largest continent with 30 percent of Earth’s land area, is warming faster than the global average. The warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 was almost double the warming trend in the 1961–1990 period (see chart), according to the World Meteorological Organisation report.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Aug 15 2023 – Protests against the high cost of living in Kenya have been met with police violence. Talks are currently underway between government and opposition – but whatever results will fall short unless it brings accountability for the catalogue of human rights violations committed in response to protests.

Economy under the spotlight

President William Ruto came to power in a narrow election victory in August 2022, making much of his relatively humble origins. He portrayed himself as the candidate of the ‘hustler nation’, on the side of struggling people, despite having accumulated great wealth. He promised to deal with the high cost of living.

That appeal may have helped him get over the line in a vote he won by a margin of only 1.6 percentage points, with stronger turnout in lower-income areas. But despite his pledges, the cost of living has just kept rising. Shortly after coming to power, Ruto axed subsidies on energy, fuel and maize flour. Electricity prices rose in December and again in April – despite Ruto saying in January that they wouldn’t.

On top of that has come a package of tax increases in the Finance Act passed in June. Income taxes have increased for higher earners, but other tax rises are regressive, in the form of indirect taxes that disproportionately affect people on lower incomes. Chief among these is the doubling of duty on petrol, diesel and other petroleum products, further pushing up the price of essential goods and transport.

Ruto says the tax hikes are the only way of cutting the government’s debt. Growing debt repayments led to speculation that Kenya might default on its debt, as Ghana and Zambia have in recent years. The petrol tax rise was reported to be a condition of International Monetary Fund support, with a circa US$1 billion package provided in July, on top of a US$1 billion World Bank loan approved in May.

The defeated presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, who refused to accept the election result, has sought to capitalise on and mobilise economic anger. In January, his political row with Ruto reignited when an anonymous alleged whistleblower from the electoral commission provided what they said was evidence of fraud, supporting Odinga’s claims of a rigged election. In March, Odinga called for weekly protests.

A violent response

Differing opinions on how Ruto should manage Kenya’s economy are understandable. Spiralling living costs driven by Russia’s war on Ukraine are a problem in many countries. A much bigger and urgent international debate is needed about how the global financial system can be restructured so that global south states aren’t trapped in debt and conditions imposed in support packages don’t put more strain on struggling people. But there should be no room for debate about how protests are policed.

In Kenya, the routine response is security force violence. Live ammunition has been used on a number of occasions, along with teargas and water cannon, a reaction entirely out of proportion to incidences of protesters burning tyres and throwing rocks. By 20 July, the overall death toll had risen to at least 30. Some victims have reportedly been shot at close range and in the back, indicating that they were running away from the police, and some shot in their homes.

"Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of democracy. It's distressing to see protestors arrested for speaking out against the high cost of living in Kenya. Let's rally together and demand their release! #StandForDemocracy #NjaaRevolution #NaneNane #Article37 pic.twitter.com/x6wWuW1v1l

— Siasa Place (@siasaplace) August 8, 2023

Even those not involved in protests have been affected: in Nairobi’s Kangemi district, over 50 children had to go to hospital after a teargas cannister landed in their classroom. The Kenya Medical Association said it had responded to hundreds of injuries. There have been numerous arrests, including of opposition politicians. Some people have been held for several days in remote locations, in defiance of the law. But Ruto praised the police, congratulating them for ‘standing firm’. A ruling party politician has even introduced a bill proposing to strengthen protest restrictions.

Journalists have been targeted by both police and protesters while reporting on protests. There have been multiple instances of detention, harassment, threats and physical violence against media workers simply doing their job.

Media companies have also faced the state’s ire. On 24 March, the media regulator threatened to revoke the licences of six media outlets over their protest coverage. A ruling party politician called on Ruto to ‘crush’ the media.

A systemic problem

The authorities may have felt entitled to take a harsh line because they saw these as opposition-driven protests exploiting the cost-of-living issue to undermine the government, particularly given Odinga’s continuing rejection of the election results. But polls suggest this goes beyond party politics: most Kenyans think their country is headed in the wrong direction.

But it doesn’t matter whether people were protesting in support of Odinga or against high inflation and new taxes: they would have the same rights to protest peacefully. Even if some protesters committed acts of violence, police force should have been the proportionate last resort rather than the disproportionate first response.

As Kenya’s vibrant civil society has pointed out for years, the state’s violent reaction isn’t unusual: regardless of who’s in power, there’s a longstanding pattern of protest repression, media restriction and police violence. Identical violations were seen at earlier cost-of-living protests in the run-up to the 2022 election, and many times before.

The problem doesn’t lie with the law, but rather with entrenched malpractice. Under the Public Order Act, protest organisers are only required to give the authorities three days’ notice of a protest; in practice, law enforcement officers interpret this as letting them deny permission for protests without explanation – and then violently repress those that go ahead.

It can only be hoped that the current dialogue leads to a solution that begins to ease the very painful conditions people are living in. But the problems of violence, repression and impunity that preceded the current crisis aren’t on the agenda – and they should be. Ruto can show in one vital way that he’s truly different from his predecessors: by upholding the rights of people to express their disagreement with him.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);