By indiscriminately extracting water resources, damaging nature and biodiversity, polluting both Earth and space while cutting down options to deal with disasters, human actions introduces new risks and amplifying existing ones.
“With these risk tipping points, it is as though we are approaching a cliff that we cannot see clearly ahead of us, and once we fall off the cliff, we can’t easily go back,” said Dr. Zita Sebesvari, one of the report’s lead authors and UNU-EHS Deputy Director.
The report analyses six interconnected risk tipping points. Selected for their representation of large global issues that impact lives across the world they are:
Accelerating extinctions that trigger chain reaction to ecosystem collapse
Groundwater depletion that drains water risking food supply
Mountain glaciers melting
Space debris causing loss of multiple satellites, “our eyes in the sky”
Unbearable heat making it hard to live in some areas
Uninsurable future when rising risks make homes unaffordable
The impacts can also cascade through to other systems and places around the world, authors of the report warn.
Understanding and acting
If risk tipping points are understood, informed decisions and decisive actions to avert the worst are possible.
“Because of the interconnected nature of these risk tipping points, their drivers, root causes and influences, avoiding them will require more than a single solution”, explained Dr. Sebesvari.
“We will need to develop solutions that bring together different sectors and address the drivers and root causes in a systemic way.”
The report offers a new framework that categorizes risk mitigation solutions into four types based on their approach: Avoid (preventing risk), Adapt (dealing with risk), Delay (slowing risk progression), and Transform (system overhaul). This framework aids in evaluating a solution’s potential outcomes and trade-offs.
Identifying a solution’s category helps evaluate potential outcomes and trade-offs.
For instance, addressing the “Unbearable heat” tipping point due to climate change may involve an Avoid-Transform approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while an Adapt-Delay approach could be installing air conditioners in hot climates, although this may contribute to global warming if powered by fossil fuels.
“In our interconnected world, we can all make changes and inspire others towards transforming the way we use our systems to reduce risk,” said Caitlyn Eberle, another lead author of the report and senior researcher for the UNU study.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Siti Sarah Abdul Razak (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 25 (IPS) – Policy approaches relying solely on voluntary actions to address urgent needs are unlikely to succeed. Depending on optional compliance to address global warming will not fix things in time.
Regulation for transformation
Tariq Fancy, former Chief Investment Officer for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, had created a storm with his criticisms of ESG (environmental and social governance) ‘greenwashing’, remaining wary of voluntary corporate-led reforms.
Jomo Kwame SundaramNevertheless, judicious and effective regulation based on ESG principles, combined with changing incentives and increased public awareness, can incentivize companies to do better.
Fancy believes changing rules for better regulation is essential for better outcomes. Limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is essential to ensure responsible governance aligned with the long-term public interest.
Investment managers have several responsibilities – including fiduciary duties, legal obligations, and financial incentives – requiring them to prioritize short-term profitability rather than sustainability.
Changing regulations to incorporate sustainability considerations should require portfolio managers to prioritize social and environmental concerns, and make choices supporting long-term sustainability goals.
Profits not aligned with public interest
Fiduciary duties oblige company managers to always act in the best interest of shareholder profits. This means ESG initiatives will only happen if they help, or at least do not hurt, profitability.
Social, cultural and media shifts in the West have undoubtedly influenced transnational business behaviour. The popularization of ESG discourses reflects these trends, but there is no strong evidence of their efficacy and positive impact.
Fleeting episodes of public attention cannot even ensure long-term protection of the public interest. With managers constrained by their fiduciary duties, relying on corporations to do the right thing is neither reliable nor sufficient.
Relying on corporate social or environmental responsibility may well become a distraction, delaying urgent and much-needed efforts. This failure underscores the need for government regulation and corporate compliance to achieve vital social and environmental goals.
De-risking finance means protecting the financial value of an investment portfolio. This includes protecting against asset damage, or reducing the risk of lower investment returns, but certainly not climate change mitigation.
Mitigating climate change requires proactive measures to reduce GHG emissions. This includes measures to generate and use clean, especially renewable energy.
Financial protection is important for financial asset owners, but it cannot replace the efforts needed to fight climate change. Worse, believing such measures address the climate crisis serves to delay government interventions and other changes needed to do so.
Climate inequity
Climate change exacerbates inequality, which in turn delays progress. The intergenerational distribution of the burden of climate risks disproportionately affects younger and future generations.
This deters proactive measures, as older generations are less inclined to spend more now for future generations who will suffer more from global warming. Instead, they may prefer measures to better adapt to its contemporary effects.
Aside from younger and future generations, the more vulnerable will also bear its worst effects. Thus, for example, small farmers in developing nations will have to cope with increased droughts, floods and crop failures.
Thus, further progress on climate change is delayed due to financial short-termist thinking, business interests, limited contemporary accountability for future consequences, as well as political and cost considerations.
Developing nations, with much smaller per capita carbon footprints, typically lack resources, leaving them more vulnerable. Meanwhile, developed countries, the major historical greenhouse gas emitters, have more resources to slow and adapt to climate change.
Can ESG principles help?
Will businesses maintain commitments to ESG ‘principles’ over the long term? They are legally obliged to maximize shareholder interests, especially profits, and also know public interest, attention, sentiment and priorities are always changing.
Business leaders may only commit to ESG principles in the long term if compelled to embrace them owing to the pecuniary costs of ignoring them. Obligations to other stakeholders – including investors, customers and employees – can also help sustain ESG commitments.
Establishing clear governance arrangements for ESG oversight, setting measurable and achievable goals, reporting regularly, and ensuring comprehensive organizational accountability should also help.
But ultimately, regulation should appropriately advance social and environmental responsibility, with such commitments sustained despite shifting public attention, fads and profit concerns.
Are voluntary efforts enough?
The COVID-19 experience has also taught us to prioritize proactive, systemic and mandatory measures, rather than rely solely on voluntary efforts. While voluntary efforts can advance sustainability efforts, the pandemic experience suggests they will not be sufficient to achieve needed changes soon enough.
A systemic approach can induce businesses and individuals to do the needed. Policy interventions, especially regulation, are essential to drive systemic changes on a large scale, and to align businesses and individuals with ESG principles.
Clear communications, transparency and collaboration – among governments, businesses and civil society – are crucial for achieving long-term sustainability and progressive social change.
To control the pandemic, governments adopted ‘all of government’ and ‘whole of society’ approaches, imposing strict mandatory lockdowns, but also providing vaccinations to all, and support to the vulnerable.
Similar top-down approaches may be needed to effectively address social and sustainability challenges. This could involve implementing regulations, standards and incentives promoting, even requiring, sustainable practices.
Cattle carcass in Kenya’s Kitengela Maasai rangelands in the great drought of 2009. A new report shows that major river basis in Africa have become sources of conflict due to drying up thanks to climate change and environmental degradation. Credit: ILRI
by Maina Waruru (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Oct 24 (IPS) – Almost all major river basins in Africa have become the epicentres for conflicts over the last 20 years, and agricultural yields on the continent could drop by up to 50 percent in the coming years owing to the drying up of ‘traditional’ water sources, thanks in part to effects climate change and degradation of the environment, the inaugural edition of the State of Africa’s Environment Report 2023 released in Nairobi finds.
At the same time, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity affect the continent the most, with a loss of 4 million hectares of forest cover each year, double the global average rate.
This, in part, has contributed to over 50 million people migrating from the degraded areas of sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and Europe by 2020, according to the report compiled by India’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released in Nairobi on October 13, 2023.
It finds that all the critical water basins on the continent were experiencing distress and turbulence due to, among other reasons, unsustainable use of resources besides climate, becoming hotspots for competition over water.
The basins include Lake Chad, shared by Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger, the river Nile shared by Egypt, Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia; Lake Victoria, Shared by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania; and the river Niger used by communities in Niger, Mali and Nigeria.
Also on the list is the river Congo basin, a joint resource used by Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, and the Lake Malawi basin shared by Tanzania and Malawi. Also on the list is the Lake Turkana basin in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Examples show that the Lake Chad basin disputes started in 1980, and the water body has diminished by 90 percent since the 1960s due to overuse and climate change effects.
“For years, the lake has supported drinking water, irrigation, fishing, livestock and economic activity for over 30 million people; it is vital for indigenous, pastoral and farming communities in one of the world’s poorest countries. However, climate change has fueled massive environmental and humanitarian crises in the region,” the report notes.
It notes that international actors and regional governments have long ignored the interplay between climate change, community violence and the forced displacement of civilians.
“Conflict between herders and farmers have become common as livelihoods are lost, and families dependent on the lake are migrating to other areas in search of water,” the report says.
“In the Congo basin, disputes started in 1960. The basin witnesses multifaceted crises, including forced displacement, violent conflicts, political instability, and climate change impacts,” it concludes.
On the other hand, it traces conflicts in the Niger basin to 1980, blaming climate change for disagreements over “damage to farmland and restricted access to water, while in the Nile, disagreements began around 2011 stemming from the construction of the Grand Renaissance dam by Ethiopia, which Egypt fears will impact water flow.
Conflicts over Lake Turkana resources are fairly recent, traced to 2016 when it was observed that with 90 percent of its water from the Omo River in Ethiopia, rising temperatures and reduced rainfall have contributed to the lake’s ‘retreat’ into Kenya.
To survive, the Ethiopian herder tribes began following the water, resulting in inter-tribal conflict with their Kenyan counterparts. The construction of Ethiopia’s Gilgel Gibe III Dam on the river worsened matters.
It notes that in 2020, between 75 and 250 million people on the continent were projected to be “exposed to increased water stress” due to climate change, warning that in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could drop up to 50 percent due to drying up of traditional water sources including lakes, rivers, and wells.
“How Africa manages its water resources will define how water-secure the world would be. Africa’s aquifers hold 0.66 million KM3 of water. This is more than 100 times the annual renewable freshwater resources stored in dams and rivers.”
Take Ethiopia, for instance. Known as the continent’s water tower, the country is confronting huge challenges of disappearing lakes and rivers, it explains.
Africa, the world’s second-largest and second-most-populous continent, hosts a quarter of the planet’s animal and plant species, but the species extinction and general biodiversity loss rate in the continent are higher than in the rest of the world.
As a result, total deaths from extreme weather, climate or water stress in the world in the last 50 years, 35 percent of them were in Africa. Predictably, Africa will account for 40 percent of the world’s migration due to climate change.
“While the Global South will bear the maximum burden of internal migration, the reasons might vary from region to region, depending on climate change-related issues like water scarcity or rising sea levels. However, water scarcity will be the main driving force of the total migration, the report explains.
Citing the example of chimpanzees, the SOE 2023 reports that there are only 1.050 million to 2.050 million of the species on the continent, limited to Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, with populations having disappeared in Gambia, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo.
On the brighter side, it says that African countries have some pioneering conservation models that, among other things, put communities at the centre of conservation efforts, noting that if Africa protects its biodiversity, the whole world will also gain.
Protected areas in Africa, if sustainably used, can eradicate poverty and bring peace, it asserts.
South Africa will be worst impacted by extreme weather events, making some areas inhospitable because of weather events, where already people are being forced to migrate within their own countries or regions in search of more hospitable and better living conditions, said Sunita Narain, CSE Director General.
Explaining the rationale behind the report, Narain said: “We can read and get the immediate story today, but often we do not get the big picture. The report will help us get that big picture. It will enable us to understand the different aspects of the environment by putting together a comprehensive picture that makes the links clearer between the environment and development. Environment and development are two sides of the same coin.”
She added that the report, produced with input from scientists and Africa-based journalists, also helped people appreciate the link between development and the environment.
According to Mamo Boru Mamo, director of Kenya’s National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), the issues raised in the report are important and pertinent to the environment in Africa.
Among other things, the SOE 2023 had captured the plight of East Africa’s agro-pastoral communities whose migration from arid and semi-arid areas of Africa to urban centres and out of the continent has risen over the recent years, thanks in part to accelerated degradation of the environment.
“The continent has a collective responsibility to manage the environment sustainably while giving direction on the position Africa should take in the upcoming UN’s COP28 in Dubai,” he said.
Citing the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), “Provisional State of the Global Climate 2022”, it finds that in East Africa, rainfall has been below average for four consecutive wet seasons, the most extended sequence in 40 years.
The region recorded five consecutive deficit rainy seasons by the end of 2022, with the rainy season of March to May 2022 being the driest in over 70 years for Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, partly due to the destruction of the environment and climate change.
Overall, the report confirms that the climate crisis in Africa was an existential problem facing millions of people who have endured the wrath of nature for years.
Over 100 journalists, researchers and experts from across Africa have contributed to the preparation of this annual publication.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 24 (IPS) – Brazil’s Supreme Court has delivered a long-awaited ruling upholding Brazilian Indigenous peoples’ claims to their traditional land. It did so by rejecting the ‘Temporal Framework’ principle, which only allowed for the demarcation and titling of lands physically occupied by the Indigenous groups who claimed them by 5 October 1988, when the current constitution was adopted. This excluded the numerous Indigenous communities who’d been violently expelled from their ancestral lands before then, including under military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.
The case was brought in relation to a land dispute in the state of Santa Catarina, but the ruling applies to hundreds of similar situations throughout Brazil.
This was also good news for the climate. Brazil is home to 60 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, a key climate stabiliser due to the enormous amount of carbon it stores and the water it releases into the atmosphere. Most of Brazil’s roughly 800 Indigenous territories – over 300 of which are yet to be officially demarcated – are in the Amazon. And there are no better guardians of the rainforest than Indigenous peoples: when they fend off deforestation, they protect their livelihoods and ways of life. The best-preserved areas of the Amazon are those legally recognised and protected as Indigenous lands.
But there’s been a sting in the tale: politicians backed by the powerful agribusiness lobby have passed legislation to enshrine the Temporal Framework, blatantly ignoring the court ruling.
A tug of war
The Supreme Court victory came after a long struggle. Hundreds of Indigenous mobilisations over several years called for the rejection of the Temporal Framework.
Powerful agribusiness interests presented the Temporal Framework as the proper way of regulating article 231 of the constitution in a way that provides the legal security rural producers need to continue to operate. Indigenous rights groups denounced it as a clear attempt to make theft of Indigenous lands legal. Regional and international human rights mechanisms sided with them: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples warned that the framework contradicted universal and Inter-American human rights standards.
In their 21 September decision, nine of the Supreme Court’s 11 members ruled the Temporal Framework to be unconstitutional. With a track record of agribusiness-friendly rulings, the two judges who backed it had been appointed by former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and one of them had also been Bolsonaro’s justice minister.
As the Supreme Court held its hearings and deliberations, political change took hold. Bolsonaro had vowed ‘not to cede one centimetre more of land’ to Indigenous peoples, and the process of land demarcation had remained stalled for years. But in April 2023, President Lula da Silva, in power since January, signed decrees recognising six new Indigenous territories and promised to approve all pending cases before the end of his term in 2026, a promise consistent with the commitment to achieve zero deforestation by 2030. The recognition of two additional reserves in September came alongside news that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had fallen by 66 per cent in August compared to the same month in 2022.
Agribusiness fights back
But the agribusiness lobby didn’t simply accept its fate. The powerful ruralist congressional caucus introduced a bill to enshrine the Temporal Framework principle into law, which the Chamber of Deputies quickly passed on 30 May. The vote was accompanied by protests, with Indigenous groups blocking a major highway. They faced the police with their ceremonial bows and arrows and were dispersed with water cannon and teargas.
The Temporal Framework bill continued its course through Congress even after the Supreme Court’s decision. On 27 September, with 43 votes for and 21 against, the Senate approved it as a matter of ‘urgency’, rejecting the substance of the Supreme Court ruling and claiming that in issuing it the court had ‘usurped’ legislative powers.
The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’s (APIB) assessment was that, as well as upholding the Temporal Framework, the bill sought to open the door to commodity production and infrastructure construction in Indigenous lands, among other serious violations of Indigenous rights. For these reasons, Indigenous groups called this the ‘Indigenous Genocide Bill’.
The struggle goes on
As the 20 October deadline for President Lula to either sign or veto the bill approached, a campaign led by Indigenous congresswoman Célia Xakriabá collected almost a million signatures backing her call for a total veto. Along with other civil society groups, APIB sent an urgent appeal to the UN requesting support to urge Lula to veto the bill.
On 19 October the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said Lula should veto the bill on the basis that it’s unconstitutional. On the same day, however, senior government sources informed that there wouldn’t be a total veto, but a ‘very large’ partial one. And indeed, the next day it was announced that Lula had partially vetoed the bill. According to a government spokesperson, all the clauses that constituted attacks on Indigenous rights and went against the Constitution were vetoed, while the ones that remained would serve to improve the land demarcation process, making it more transparent.
Even if the part of the bill that wasn’t vetoed doesn’t undermine the Supreme Court ruling, the issue is far from settled. The veto now needs to be analysed at a congressional session on a date yet to be determined. And the agribusiness lobby won’t back down easily. Many politicians own land overlapping Indigenous territories, and many more received campaigns funding from farmers who occupy Indigenous lands.
While further moves by the right-leaning Congress can’t be ruled out, the Supreme Court ruling also has some problems. The most blatant concerns the acknowledgment that there must be ‘fair compensation’ for non-Indigenous people occupying Indigenous lands they acquired ‘in good faith’ before the state considered them to be Indigenous territory. Indigenous groups contend that, while there might be a very small number of such cases, in a context of increasing violence against Indigenous communities, the compensation proposal would reward and further incentivise illegal invasions.
But beneath the surface of political squabbles, deeper changes are taking place that point to a movement that is growing stronger and better equipped to defend Indigenous peoples’ rights.
The 2022 census showed a 90-per-cent increase, from 896,917 to 1.69 million, in the number of Brazilians identifying as Indigenous compared to the census 12 years before. There was no demographic boom behind these numbers – just longstanding work by the Indigenous movement to increase visibility and respect for Indigenous identities. People who’d long ignored and denied their heritage to protect themselves from racism are now reclaiming their Indigenous identities. Not even the violent anti-Indigenous stance of the Bolsonaro administration could reverse this.
Today the Brazilian Indigenous movement is stronger than ever. President Lula owes his election to positioning himself as an alternative to his anti-rights, climate-denying predecessor. He now has the opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights while tackling the climate crisis.
LONDON, Oct 20 (IPS) – It’s a rapid reversal for New Zealand’s Labour Party, in power for six years. At the last election in 2020 it won an outright majority, the first party to do so under the current voting system. But three years on, it’s finished a distant second in the election held on 14 October. The result speaks to a broader pattern seen amid economic strife in many countries – of intense political volatility and the rejection of incumbents.
Jacindamania fades
Former Labour leader Jacinda Ardern captured the public imagination when she took the helm of her party in August 2017. Labour had been floundering but went on to gain seats at the election the following month, unexpectedly forming a coalition government.
Aged 37, Ardern was her country’s youngest-ever prime minister by some margin, and the world’s youngest female government leader. Many saw her as a breath of fresh air, offering an approachable and empathetic brand of politics. Ardern enjoyed an international profile unprecedented for a New Zealand prime minister.
The 2020 election saw Ardern and her party rewarded for what was widely seen as an effective pandemic response, credited with saving around 20,000 lives. The opportunity seemed on to pursue an ambitious agenda. The government could point to progress in decriminalising abortion, tightening gun control laws and introducing stronger workplace rights. But many saw the government as having an overcrowded legislative agenda, failing to make headway on headline policies such as child poverty, while voters increasingly became preoccupied with high inflation.
Ardern announced her resignation in January 2023. Her popularity and that of her party had declined amid the soaring cost of living, which some blamed on long pandemic lockdowns.
Ardern had been the target of a bombardment of online abuse, much of it vilely misogynist in nature. Last year New Zealand police reported that threats against Ardern had almost tripled over two years, as anti-vaccine disinformation and conspiracy theories accumulated extremist adherents. In 2022, anti-vaccine protesters camped for weeks outside parliament. The protests, which ended in violence, were a magnet for far-right extremists. Levels of vitriol previously unseen in New Zealand were again present during the election campaign, in which women and M?ori candidates in particular were subjected to intimidation and instances of violence.
Ardern’s replacement as prime minister, Chris Hipkins, promised to focus on bread-and-butter issues. He cut many progressive policies and pitched squarely for the centre. But his strategy failed. Labour was the only major party to shed votes. It lost support to the centre-right National Party – New Zealand’s other party of government – along with the right-wing Act and the nationalist and populist NZ First. But it also shed more progressive voters, with the Green party and Te P?ti M?ori, which advocates for Indigenous rights, picking up support.
Fractious coalition ahead
Quite what government will form isn’t yet clear. Results are provisional and won’t be finalised until 3 November, with over half a million ‘special votes’ still to be counted – many from New Zealanders living overseas. Due to the death of a candidate a by-election will also be held.
The National party has 50 seats in the 121-seat single-chamber parliament; the workings of the electoral system mean parliament will expand to 122 seats once all votes are counted. This total means it’s clear the National party will head a coalition government, with Christopher Luxon as prime minister. But a National-Act alliance might not be enough to command a majority. NZ First may need to be part of the coalition too.
NZ First is the creation of maverick opportunist Winston Peters. Over the course of a long career, Peters has pulled off the trick of positioning as anti-establishment while working with both main parties in coalition governments, including Ardern’s first administration, and serving as deputy prime minister twice. This time he was able to capitalise on anti-government sentiment developed under the pandemic, including by opposing vaccine mandates.
Among his campaign targets were M?ori rights, with Peters – himself M?ori – pledging to withdraw support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Another focus was trans rights, tapping into the same currents of manufactured outrage seen in Europe and North America, with a law proposed to restrict access to toilets for transgender people.
The numbers may mean that the National party finds it easier to govern with Peters than without, even though the three parties disagree on key policies, including on the economy and housing. It could be a rocky road ahead.
Advances reversed?
For New Zealand’s civil society, the question could now become how best to defend gains made and keep on the agenda vital issues such as climate change. The climate crisis was barely mentioned during the campaign even though the country is experiencing extreme weather along with the rest of Oceania. Hipkins scrapped a series of transport reforms intended to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Act, certain to be part of government, wants to get rid of New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission and Zero Carbon Act, which mandates an emissions reduction plan and cap.
The last government’s experiments in ‘co-governance’ – essentially collaborative management, mostly of environmental resources, between government and M?ori representatives, based in New Zealand’s foundational Treaty of Waitangi – seem sure to end. All parties likely to be involved in the new government attacked these moves with a flurry of hyperbolic claims. Act and NZ First characterise efforts to challenge the exclusion of M?ori people as privileging them over other population groups. The danger is that those strongly opposed to M?ori rights will feel emboldened, signalling increasing division and polarisation ahead.
New Zealand offers a lesson on the political consequences of the impacts of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis intensified by Russia’s war on Ukraine. In just three years, overwhelming political support evaporated. Progress may be temporary and subject to rapid reversal. Civil society must be able to switch strategies just as quickly, from advocating for more to defending gains already made.
Cattle quench their thirst at a drying river as worsening drought conditions continue in Isiolo County, Kenya. Credit: ILRI/Geoffrey Njenga
by Maina Waruru (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Oct 17 (IPS) – Women in pastoralist areas of East Africa are critical to the health of livestock in their communities, holding the key to effective animal vaccination campaigns meant to protect herds against deadly diseases.
They are, therefore, an important part of any vaccination strategies designed to guard the animals against killer outbreaks and need to be involved in such efforts for them to be successful.
Achieving the goals of such campaigns has become increasingly important as the effects of climate change introduce new diseases that threaten the sector and, by extension, household incomes.
It has become critically important to integrate females in such health campaigns, and one barrier to their success is the failure of authorities and development agencies to involve them.
While women, due to cultural reasons, do not commonly own livestock, they act as caregivers when the animals are sick, and with incidents of disease outbreaks rising, involving them, in the end, ensures improved food and financial security for families.
Besides, an increasing number of households in the region where livestock keeping is the economic mainstay are being headed by women who also act as providers to their families.
Unsurprisingly, as many as 43 percent of livestock insurance policyholders in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, where the policies have been introduced in the recent past, are women, scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) say.
“Besides taking care of animals when they are sick, women influence the allocation of resources at the household level, determining things such as how money should go to buying vaccines, for example. Therefore, a strong gender strategy to allow women access to disease control is very important,” said Dr Bernard Bett, ILRI Senior Scientist, Animal and Human Health Program.
In its disease surveillance and response strategy, ILRI engaged “community disease reporters,” local leaders, and village women’s champions, including women heads of households, to gather information on outbreaks and to create awareness about vaccination campaigns, says Bett.
At times he noted, women got intimidated in queues by men during mass vaccination exercises, making them lose valuable time for other chores at home as they waited for their turn in the queue.
Authorities and organizations carrying out the missions have responded by enforcing a first–come–first–serve policy in the interest of fairness and increased animal health personnel staffing levels for orderly vaccinations, he explained.
Recognizing that conflict with household tasks was a permanent reality for women, ILRI practiced and advocated for early communication to enable better planning through community messaging while actively supporting females’ role in caring for livestock, he added.
Climate change, evidenced by frequent droughts and flood incidents in arid and semi-arid areas of East Africa that are the home of pastoralism in the region, Bett observed, presented a major disease burden with incidents of outbreaks of diseases such as Rift Valley Fever being a major threat.
“Highly climate-sensitive diseases causing pathogens attracted by changes in weather conditions, including those caused by vectors such as ticks and tsetse flies, become common. Efficient delivery of disease control measures, including vaccinations, is therefore important,” he told a recent media briefing in Nairobi.
Owing to the nomadic nature of pastoralists in search of pastures and water in times of shortage it is women are the ones who take care of households when the men are away with cattle and camels, while women are left behind caring for goats, calves, and vulnerable animals, making them also effectively in charge of their households.
Like their counterparts in the crop farming areas of the region, women pastoralists are faced with the challenge of providing food for their families, which is made worse by lack of income due to livestock deaths, noted Dr Rupsha Bernerjee, ILRI senior scientist attached to livestock and climate initiative.
“Whenever there are shocks such as droughts which in turn lead to food shortages, women skip meals to ensure their families are fed. It is therefore important to promote social inclusion in livestock health programs to ensure no one is left behind,” she said.
The impressive uptake of livestock insurance among women increases the resilience of herder communities, enabling them to cope with climate-induced risks, she added.
“Payments made to herders when droughts are very severe help in reducing distress sales of livestock guaranteeing that families are cushioned against possible malnutrition, thus the importance of women livestock health,” she told the briefing at the global body’s Nairobi headquarters.
In appreciating the important role in the health of livestock IDRC, Global Affairs Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (LVIF), which supports the development and production of innovative vaccines to improve livestock health and the livelihoods of farmers.
The agency notes that worldwide, more than 750 million people keep livestock as a source of income, 400 million being women, but animal diseases, such as Newcastle disease in chickens and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in goats, create widespread devastation, with women disproportionately affected because “they are less likely than men to be able to access vaccines to prevent such losses.”
“Millions of women livestock holders face financial and animal losses when diseases sweep through their farms. These infections are often highly preventable with a simple vaccination, so what is preventing women from taking measures to protect their assets?” the IDRC poses.
To answer find answers to the imbalance, the partners launched a regional livestock vaccine initiative called SheVax+ research project was launched in 2019, bringing together Cumming School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University-US, the Africa One Health University Network (AFROHUN) together and implementing partners, Makerere University, University of Nairobi, and University of Rwanda.
Helen Amuguni, the SheVax+ principal investigator, identifies three primary barriers to livestock vaccine uptake among women smallholder livestock farmers in East Africa, including gender norms, which lead to women having less access to information on vaccinations, animal health, and livestock management practices.
Stereotypes, she says, affect the way women are viewed in relation to livestock ownership, leading to their exclusion during vaccination information campaigns. Power relations also mean some women require permission from the male household head to attend training or control livestock-related resources.
As a result, many women lack understanding of, among other things, the availability and importance of vaccines, while those who do have awareness may be prevented from acting upon it, she explains.
Besides carrying out disease control and management initiatives insuring livestock, as happens with the Index-Based Livestock Insurance pioneered by ILRI to ‘de-risk’ the sector, was a critical component of cushioning the sector’s well-being and incomes for households, according to Bernard Kimoro, head of climate change and livestock sustainability in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Kenya.
Operational in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, the insurance utilizes satellite data to determine and read the conditions of the vegetation, where herders get compensation when the vegetation turns brown/yellow to indicate drought or shortage of foliage.
Desperation in the pure livestock systems in the region due to frequent climate change-linked droughts in the region called for both new animal disease control and feeds and nutritional strategies, he said.
The droughts have led to keepers using unsustainable feeds with high methane gas levels owing as the owners tried to keep animals alive during the dry spells, the official regrets.
The Greater Horn of Africa region is predicted to experience El Nino weather conditions characterized by higher than usual rainfall beginning this October to early 2024.
Earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic activity and other natural disasters regularly cause destruction and the loss of life in parts of the Caribbean.
On the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction marked annually on 13 October, UN Resident Coordinator for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Didier Trebucq and Nahuel Arenas, regional chief of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) consider the connection between disasters and inequality.
“In the Caribbean, we share a deep understanding of the intricate link between disasters and inequality. It’s a narrative of uneven access to crucial resources, leaving the most vulnerable exposed to the impacts of disasters. When disasters strike, they disproportionately affect marginalized communities, exacerbating existing inequalities and pushing them deeper into poverty.
UN Resident Coordinator for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Didier Trebucq (left) visits St. Vincent and the Grenadines six months after the volcanic eruption.
Fighting inequality is critical to build a stronger and safer future for everyone.
Interconnected challenges
The region faces a range of challenges today—economic uncertainties, widening disparities, supply chain disruptions, energy shortages, price surges, and inflation—all of which cast shadows on economies and livelihoods and worsens the impact of disasters. According to the UNDRR’s Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, globally disasters will push an additional 100.7 million people into poverty by 2030 and an estimated 37.6 million more people will be living in conditions of extreme poverty due to the impacts of climate change.
Recent research paints a stark picture: the poorest bear the heaviest burden when disasters strike. For instance, the deadliest recent disaster in the Caribbean, the Port-au-Prince Earthquake in 2010, impacted the poorest country of the region: Haiti; and its long-term impacts continue to be visible more than a decade later.
MINUSTAH/Marco Dormino
A man walks through the rubble of collapsed buildings in downtown Port au Prince, Haiti, following the earthquake in January 2010.
Between 1970 and 2019, a staggering 91 per cent of all deaths caused by weather, climate, and water hazards occurred in developing countries like the Caribbean. Similarly, the World Bank reports that 82 per cent of disaster-related deaths occurred in low and lower-middle-income countries.
Cycles of inequality
Approximately 75 per cent of extreme weather events are now linked to climate change, primarily fueled by carbon emissions. Ironically, those experiencing the most severe losses from disasters are often those who have contributed the least to the problem.
In essence, inequality acts as a conduit, transferring disaster risk from those who benefit from risk-taking to those who bear its costs.
Impoverished communities are more likely to reside in hazard-prone areas, lack the resources to invest in risk reduction measures, live in substandard and insecure housing, and have limited access to essential services such as healthcare, public transport, and basic infrastructure.
Specific populations, including women, children, and persons with disabilities, are disproportionately affected by disaster impacts. For example, studies reveal that women in the Caribbean region are less likely to receive official warnings about impending disasters than men. Similarly, during past disasters, persons with disabilities were often the most vulnerable.
This entails a resolute reduction of poverty and inequality, alongside action against disaster risk and vulnerability. Our focus remains unwaveringly fixed on the most vulnerable communities, ensuring they receive the protection and support they deserve.
On a global scale, decision-makers are looking at revamping the financial architecture, aligning it to better serve the needs of the world’s most vulnerable countries. Economic resilience is critical for those most at risk from disasters, forming an indispensable component of our collective strategy to confront the challenges that lie ahead.
Disaster preparedness drills can help reduce the impact of disasters on communities.
Furthermore, the implementation of the Early Warnings for All initiative, including in Caribbean countries such as Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda, will help to ensure that every corner of the globe is covered by multi-hazard early warning systems within the next four years.
By prioritizing the most at-risk communities, we offer them the vital lifeline of preparedness and early warnings.
By engaging in disaster risk reduction, countries will bolster their capacity, and empower diverse groups in all decision-making processes. Women, the elderly, and persons living with disabilities should be at the forefront, and actively included in our efforts.
The presence of local, national and regional actors, including state and civil society organisations remains key to humanitarian and resilience effectiveness since local actors are often the first responders in an emergency.
As we commemorate this year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, let us recommit ourselves to this formidable challenge. Let us remember that in the face of disaster-induced inequality, we hold the power to reshape the future.
Together, we can break these chains, forging a path to resilience and equality for all, for a brighter Caribbean awaits.”
UN Resident Coordinator:
The UN Resident Coordinator, sometimes called the RC, is the highest-ranking representative of the UN development system at the country level.
In this occasional series, UN News is inviting RCs to blog on issues important to the UN and the country where they serve.
Learn more about the UN’s work in in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean here.
Find out more about the UN Development Coordination Office here.
According to various estimates, up to 75 per cent of extreme weather events are currently connected to climate change, fuelled by carbon emissions.
The countries experiencing the greatest losses from disasters are those who contribute the least to the problem.
UN figures reveal that from 1970 through 2019, some 91 percent of all of deaths from weather, climate, and water hazards occurred in developing countries.
The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) forecasts that by 2030, the world will face some 1.5 significant disasters per day. In light of such trends scaling up disaster risk reduction efforts is a must.
Those with least, face ‘greatest risk’
“Those with least are often at greatest risk from extreme weather. They may live in places that are more susceptible to flooding and drought; and they have fewer resources to deal with damage and to recover from it”, said the UN chief, marking the day under the theme: “Fighting inequality for a resilient future”.
One of the tools to tackle inequality at the global level is the Loss and Damage Fund which is expected to be operationalized at the COP28 climate conference in early December.
Another important initiative aims to ensure that that every person on Earth is covered by an early warning system by 2027.
Early warnings for all
At the September UN Climate Ambition Summit, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) announced a large-scale, collaborative push to establish the Early Warning Systems in some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, for which an initial injection of US$1.3 million from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) will be used for the first group of countries.
These include Antigua and Barbuda, Cambodia, Chad, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, and Somalia.
Students take part in a safety evacuation drill in the coastal province of Koh Kong, Cambodia.
Designed by UNDP, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UNDRR, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the project is a key contribution to realizing the UN Secretary-General’s Early Warnings for All initiative.
Photo of several cable cars of the Cablebus, which runs on electricity and has been carrying passengers through the south and southeast of Mexico City since 2021. Mexican public transportation is still based on fossil fuels, and a transition to cleaner alternatives is necessary. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Oct 12 (IPS) – Maribel Ochoa takes less time and spends less money commuting from her home to her work in eastern Mexico City thanks to the use of the electric Cablebus, a cable car that has improved her quality of life since the service began operating two years ago.
“It used to take me an hour. Now I make the trip in 15 minutes and the Cablebus drops me off three blocks from my house. And I don’t have to wait long for the cable car to come,” the 52-year-old married mother of seven, who is a cleaning lady for several families, told IPS.
In the past, she had to take a minibus to the Metro public transportation system to get to work.
The six-person turquoise-colored cable cars carry passengers dozens of meters at six meters per second through four hills on the east side of Mexico City. Below, passengers can watch the road traffic, the bustle of street vendors and children filing in and out of schools. Greater Mexico City is home to more than 20 million people.
The cable cars fly over the east side of the city, above the chaotic urban expansion below.
The route is part of one of the two lines of the Cablebus electric public transportation system, which is almost 11 kilometers long and connects the southeast with the eastern part of the city.
Since 2021, the cable car system, which cost some 300 million dollars to build, has transported around 36 million people on its two lines, at a rate of 120,000 passengers per day, in 682 cable cars for a distance over 20 kilometers. Line 1 connects the north and east of the capital.
In addition, since 2016, the Mexicable has been operating, with two 14-kilometer routes, in the municipality of Ecatepec, in the neighboring state of Mexico, north of the Mexican capital.
Together with a Metrobus line, a dedicated lane bus rapid transit (BRT) model and trolleybuses, these systems offer an alternative to the conventional fossil fuel-powered transportation networks that are predominant in this Latin American country of some 129 million people.
Mexico has a long tradition of using trolleybuses and cable cars, which were left in the past due to the prioritization of fossil-fueled ground transportation.
With 623 units, mostly trolleybuses, Mexico is the country with the third largest number of electromobility units, after Chile (2043) and Colombia (1589), according to the international E-BUS Radar platform. In total, the region has almost 5,000 electric buses, concentrated in the capital cities.
The replacement of fossil fuel vehicles with electric ones reduces gasoline consumption, air pollution and noise generation.
In Mexico, transportation accounted for 139.15 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, a gas generated by human activities and responsible for global warming, out of a total of 690.62 million, according to 2021 data from the National Inventory of Greenhouse Gas and Compound Emissions of the governmental National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC).
A station of the Cablebus, the electric cable car that since 2021 connects the south and southeast of Mexico City, greatly shortening the commute for residents in those areas. Mexican public transport is still mostly powered by fossil fuels, and the country is making a very slow transition to cleaner alternatives. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
Few electric vehicles
Bernardo Baranda, director for Latin America of the non-governmental Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) said there was “insufficient progress” in the decarbonization of the sector, which, moreover, is taking place mainly in large cities.
“As a country, we are lagging behind. We need to make some adjustments and to be more ambitious. More support is needed from the federal government; it would be very good if it strengthened the mass transit program, to provide incentives for concessionaires and operators to acquire more electric fleets,” he told IPS in Mexico City, where the Institute’s regional headquarters is located.
In Mexico there are more than 53 million vehicles, and the number has been rising steadily since 2000, according to figures from the National Institute of Geography and Statistics, which adds that most of them run on fossil fuels. The institution reported 229.36 million public transportation users in July in the country’s eight main metropolitan areas and cities.
Victor Alvarado, head of the Mobility and Climate Agenda area of the non-governmental organization The Power of the Consumer, identified challenges such as profitability, sufficient demand, adequate facilities, and awareness of the issue among concessionaires and transport operators.
“What we envision today arises from local needs and a commitment to offer public transport services that can mitigate the effects of climate change. The useful life of conventional buses ranges from 10 to 15 years, and this becomes an opportunity to renew the fleet,” he told IPS.
At the national level, experts point out, Mexico lacks an electromobility strategy, with a plan yet to be finalized, despite its importance in the reduction of polluting emissions and the path to move towards a low carbon economy, which is an additional restriction for the adoption of policies.
However, the government of the capital has set goals for the deployment of alternative transportation and pollution reduction.
In addition, one of the lines of action of the capital city’s Electromobility Strategy 2018-2030 projects that 30 percent of the Metrobus fleet will be electric by 2030, equivalent to 300 buses.
Little by little, more initiatives are joining the move towards electromobility. The government of the capital is building a third Cablebus line, five kilometers long and with 11 stations, on the west side of Mexico City.
And the northern industrial city of Monterrey, with more than 1.5 million inhabitants, is preparing to introduce some 110 electric buses with an investment of 56 million dollars in public funds.
It is doing so through the Tumi E-Bus Mission project, aimed at supporting 500 cities (including Mexico City and Guadalajara, as well as Monterrey) in their transition to the deployment of 100,000 electric buses in total by 2025.
With technical advice from the German Agency for International Cooperation and six international organizations, the plan is part of the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative.
One of the elevated trolleybuses that run along the east side of Mexico City, at one of the stops. Mexico has 623 electric units that reduce polluting emissions, even though the power supply depends on oil by-products. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
ECLAC outlines three scenarios for Mexico, to 2025 and 2030. The intensive adoption perspective requires an addition of 18.99 million electric units, so that the proportion would rise to 21 percent and 42 percent of the total, respectively.
Ochoa hopes that alternative transportation will expand, so that her commute will become even shorter and cheaper.
But she knows that this depends on the decisions made by the national and local authorities.
Baranda, the regional expert, is confident that the next government will prioritize electric transport. “The sector is one of the main producers of pollutants. This has to be reflected in budgets. In small cities we should move towards the transition; smaller units can be used, these areas should not be left behind,” he said.
Alvarado the activist said actions are needed in financing, reallocation of budgets, professionalization of local authorities and creation of incentives for the acquisition of more environmentally friendly fleets.
“But part of the problem is that the energy source is still fossil fuels. That is where a focus on renewable energy generation comes in. In the states we have to see who dares to explore renewable energy for transportation; that is a great opportunity,” he said.
But until that future arrives, the urban population has to put up with mostly inefficient, unreliable and polluting public transport.
Opinion by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 12 (IPS) – This year we pass the halfway mark both on our journey towards implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Asian and Pacific countries have seen mixed progress on both. One of the most pressing challenges is the transition to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, as encapsulated by SDG 7.
Without a significant acceleration of effort, reaching SDG 7 and its targets for energy access, renewable energy and energy efficiency will elude our region. Given the significance of Asia and the Pacific in terms of global energy supply and consumption, actions taken here will set the tone for the global trajectory of progress on SDG 7 and the fight against climate change.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) will place these issues at center stage during next week’s (19-20 October) Asian and Pacific Energy Forum. This meeting will provide a platform for the region’s energy ministers to plan a regional agenda for a sustainable energy transition.
Looming large among these issues is the lack of access to electricity and clean cooking fuels for hundreds of millions of people. This deprivation has far-reaching consequences, and is a harsh reminder that, while the region has made significant strides in economic development, not everyone has enjoyed the fruits of progress.
Lack of access to electricity hinders healthcare, education and economic opportunities. Moreover, the reliance on traditional cooking fuels such as fuelwood contributes to respiratory diseases that disproportionately affect women and children. Energy poverty exacerbates existing inequalities, trapping communities in a cycle of deprivation.
To bridge the energy gap and promote climate-friendly sustainable development, increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency is an imperative. The transition to renewables opens avenues for economic growth and job creation.
Energy efficiency lowers the need for new supplies, relieves pressures on our energy systems, increases productivity and reduces waste, simultaneously saving money for households and businesses. Together, renewable energy and energy efficiency foster energy security.
Realizing the SDG 7 targets requires increased financial flows. According to the Secretary-General’s Global Roadmap for Accelerated SDG Action, annual investments in access to electricity must increase by $35 billion and by $25 billion for clean cooking by 2025.
A tripling of renewable energy and energy efficiency investment is needed by 2030. Scaling up finance at this rate requires a large infusion of private finance to bolster insufficient public sources, alongside a shifting of national budgets away from fossil fuels. Carbon pricing mechanisms can incentivize businesses to transition towards cleaner energy solutions. Innovative business models and financial instruments can attract international finance. But for these to be successful, governments must provide predictable and enabling policy environments.
To ensure the stability of the energy transition over the long term, governments must keep an eye on over-the-horizon risks. Key among these is the ensuring and adequate, stable and predictable supplies of critical raw materials needed to construct the millions of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries of the future.
Our region holds immense potential for critical raw materials production, making it a key player in the global energy transition. However, regional collaboration is needed alongside responsible mining and extraction practices that minimize environmental damage and social disruptions. Moreover, investing in recycling of critical raw materials can reduce our consumption of finite resources.
While transitioning towards clean energy is a moral and environmental imperative, a just transition ensures that no one is left behind as countries move away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable resources and technologies. This includes reskilling and reemployment opportunities for workers in declining industries, as well as community support to mitigate the socio-economic impacts of the energy
transition.
Achieving SDG 7 requires a multifaceted approach. This is not a challenge that any one country or sector can solve in isolation; it demands collaboration, innovation and shared responsibility. As we reflect on our progress at this halfway point, it is timely for countries across Asia and the Pacific to recommit to a regional vision where all citizens have access to clean and modern energy and the full potential of renewables and energy efficiency are realized.
The momentum behind these changes is growing and the opportunity to close these gaps must be seized.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahban is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
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