AfricaFocus Bulletin
November 10, 2016 (161110)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Africa is already burning. The election of Trump is a disaster for
our continent. The United States, if it follows through on its new
President’s rash words about withdrawing from the international
climate regime, will become a pariah state in global efforts for
climate action. This is a moment where the rest of the world must
not waver and must redouble commitments to tackle dangerous climate
change,”  Geoffrey Kamese, Friends of the Earth Africa.

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[This version of this AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out by email contains
only brief excerpts from each article. For more extensive excerpts,
read on-line at http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/ren1611.php; for
full articles go to the link cited in each case.]

There is no doubt that the election of Donald Trump poses an extreme
threat to action on climate change, as on a host of other
interconnected issues. But, in this case, as in many others, it is
important to remember that a U.S. president, no matter how powerful,
is only one of the forces affecting the outcomes.

Yes, this is a major setback, but the threat did not begin with
Trump and the struggles to combat it must and will continue – on
multiple fronts. While no one organization or movement can fight on
all fronts, those forces fighting for justice and for a future for
our planet must have a vision of a wider background than one U.S.
presidential election.

The context is not only the United States, but the world. And the
arenas are not only political (at multiple levels of government, and
even within the executive branch of the federal government itself),
but also technical, economic, and activist (from divestment to
protest sites such as the Dakota Pipeline). No one organization or
even movement can be on all fronts at once, but together we must
find ways to strategies embedded in a wider vision rather than
engage in fruitless debates about which action track is the “most
important.”

This AfricaFocus Bulletin consists of excerpts from a selection of
statements and articles illustrating the multiple tracks on which
action to combat the threat of global warming can and must take
place, globally, in Africa, and in the United States.

* The first two statements are reactions from climate activists to
the additional threat posed by the election of Donald Trump.

* The third highlights the continuing technical and economic success
of cheap off-grid and mini-grid solar in Africa, which is now
estimated to be reaching 10% of the 600,000 Africans living off
national  electricity grids.

* The next provides a summary of both the necessity and the economic
and technical viability of a comprehensive transition away from
fossil fuels, from Oil Change International and a coalition of
related organizations.

* The fifth is an open letter from climate activist groups to the
Equator Principles Association of banks committed to social
responsibility principles, calling for withdrawal of support for the
Dakota Access Pipeline.

* The sixth is an update from the International Energy Agency,
revising upwards its projections for growth of renewable energy
worldwide.

* And the last is a report from South Africa’s Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) noting that “new power
from solar PV and wind today is at least 40% cheaper than that from
new baseload coal today.”

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on the environment and climate
issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

Other background articles worth noting:

“There’s no way around it: Donald Trump is going to be a disaster
for the planet,” Vox, Nov 9, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/oturdlb

“10 Ways You Can Help the Standing Rock Sioux Fight the Dakota
Access Pipeline”

25 Snapshots from the Stillwater Pow Wow

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

“Deep breaths. Now let’s plan the fight ahead,” 350.org, Nov 9, 2016

[Excerpts: full text at
https://350.org/deep-breaths-now-lets-plan-the-fight-ahead/]

Here’s what I’m keeping in mind right now:

* This is a global movement. It’s more important than ever to
remember our connection with people in literally every country who
are fighting the fossil fuel industry right now — many in the
toughest conditions imaginable. I believe in our collective power
like nothing else.

* The fossil fuel industry is in a fight for its life. When we
expose their lies, stop their pipelines, divest from their stocks
and take away their social license — they fight back. Their
investment in this election was no secret, and they’re going to
double-down in its aftermath.

* Local fossil fuel resistance is taking root everywhere. Not only
has the fight against the Dakota Access pipeline spread like
wildfire, but other campaigns against fracking, pipelines, and coal
are too many to name. None of us are giving up or going home today.

********************************************************

Global Community Must Unite Against Trump to Avoid Climate
Catastrophe

Friends of the Earth International

Joint Press release

9 November 2016

http://tinyurl.com/pe4u693

As news of Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential Election
reached Marrakech, climate justice groups gathered at the COP22
United Nations annual climate change talks reacted:

“Whilst the election of a climate denier into the White House sends
the wrong signal globally. The grassroots movements for climate
justice – Native American communities, people of color, working
people – those that are at this moment defending water rights in
Dakota, ending fossil fuel pollution, divesting from the fossil fuel
industry, standing with communities who are losing their homes and
livelihoods from extreme weather devastation to creating a renewable
energy transformation – are the real beating heart of the movement
for change. We will redouble our efforts, grow stronger and remain
committed to stand with those on the frontline of climate injustice
at home and abroad.. In the absence of leadership from our
government, the international community must come together redouble
their effort to prevent climate disaster,” said Jesse Bragg, from
Boston-based Corporate Accountability International.

“For communities in the global south, the U.S. citizens’ choice to
elect Donald Trump seems like a death sentence. Already we are
suffering the effects of climate change after years of inaction by
rich countries like the U.S., and with an unhinged climate change
denier now in the White House, the relatively small progress made is
under threat. The international community must not allow itself to
be dragged into a race to the bottom. Other developed countries like
Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan must increase their pledges for
pollution cuts and increase their financial support for our
communities,” said Wilfred D’Costa from the Asian Peoples’ Movement
on Debt and Development.

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As prices plunge, Africa surges into clean, cheap solar energy

Maina Waruru

Mail and Guardian, 12 Oct 2016

http://tinyurl.com/nu7f9v8

Solar systems in Africa can now provide electricity for many
households for as little as $56 a year.

Last August Kenya won $36 million in support from France to put in
place 23 mini-grid systems in northern Kenya that will use solar
panels, wind or a combination of the two. (Bloomberg) Last August
Kenya won $36 million in support from France to put in place 23
mini-grid systems in northern Kenya that will use solar panels, wind
or a combination of the two. (Bloomberg) Until almost two years ago,
James Mbugua, a farmer living in Karai, a village on the outskirts
of Kenya’s capital, relied on kerosene to light his house, and a car
battery to power his television so he wouldn’t miss the news.

Part of the reason he couldn’t plug into the power grid, despite
being so close to Nairobi and in an area where electricity is
readily available, is that he lives on government land as a
squatter, with no papers to show he owns the 70-foot by 80-foot
parcel where he has put up a makeshift house.

Now, however, he has found an alternative: An affordable solar
system to power his home.

“I could not go on like that and had to seek an alternative way of
lighting my house and I discovered that with only $150 I could use
solar to light my house and power the television plus radio,” he
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The money for the purchase, he said, came from a loan from his
community savings group, which asks members to contribute $5 a month
and then offers loans from that pot of cash.

The father of five grown children is one of the millions of people
across Africa who are taking advantage of falling prices of home
solar panel systems to get cheaper, cleaner and more reliable
energy.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), home
solar systems in Africa can now provide electricity for many
households for as little as $56 a year – a cost lower than getting
energy from diesel or paraffin.

Of the estimated 600 million people living off-grid in Africa, about
10 percent of them are now using off-grid clean energy to light
their homes, according to IRENA statistics.

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The Sky’s Limit: Why the Paris Climate Goals Require a Managed
Decline of Fossil Fuel Production

Greg Muttitt, September 22, 2016

Oil Change International, in collaboration with 350.org, Amazon
Watch, APMDD, AYCC, Bold Alliance, Christian Aid, Earthworks,
Équiterre, Global Catholic Climate Movement, HOMEF, Indigenous
Environmental Network, IndyAct, Rainforest Action Network, and
Stand.earth

http://priceofoil.org/2016/09/22/the-skys-limit-report/

September 2016

Press Release

A new study released by Oil Change International, in partnership
with 14 organizations from around the world, scientifically grounds
the growing movement to keep carbon in the ground by revealing the
need to stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure and industry
expansion. It focuses on the potential carbon emissions from
developed reserves – where the wells are already drilled, the pits
dug, and the pipelines, processing facilities, railways, and export
terminals constructed.

Key Findings:

The potential carbon emissions from the oil, gas, and coal in the
world’s currently operating fields and mines would take us beyond
2deg C of warming.

The reserves in currently operating oil and gas fields alone, even
with no coal, would take the world beyond 1.5°C.

With the necessary decline in production over the coming decades to
meet climate goals, clean energy can be scaled up at a corresponding
pace, expanding the total number of energy jobs.

Key Recommendations:

No new fossil fuel extraction or transportation infrastructure
should be built, and governments should grant no new permits for
them.

Some fields and mines – primarily in rich countries – should be
closed before fully exploiting their resources, and financial
support should be provided for non-carbon development in poorer
countries.

This does not mean stopping using all fossil fuels overnight.
Governments and companies should conduct a managed decline of the
fossil fuel industry and ensure a just transition for the workers
and communities that depend on it.

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An open letter to the Equator Principles Association

Civil society groups call for stronger climate commitments in EPs
and a halt to financing the Dakota Access Pipeline

By: BankTrack,Friends of the Earth US,others & RAN

For full version, including signatories and references, visit
http://www.banktrack.org/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/p4pwhpr

Nov 7 2016

[For contact on this letter: johan@banktrack.org)]   To:  Mr. Nigel
Beck, Standard Bank, Chair of the Equator Principles Association,
All Equator Principles Financial institutions (EPFIs)

Concerning:  Equator Principles climate commitments, and EPFI
financing of the Dakota Access Pipeline, for discussion at your
Annual Meeting and Workshop in London

Dear Mr. Beck,

The undersigned organizations are writing to you, as Chair of the
Equator Principles Association, to urge the Association at its
upcoming Annual Meeting in London to address two distinct and
important issues:

* Equator Principles Financial Institutions (EPFIs) must take long
overdue, concrete steps to strengthen their climate commitments.

* Our deep concern about the involvement of a substantial number of
EPFIs in the financing of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

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IEA raises its five-year renewable growth forecast as 2015 marks
record year (Paris)

International Energy Agency 25 October 2016

https://www.iea.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/h6x3qrc

The International Energy Agency said today that it was significantly
increasing its five-year growth forecast for renewables thanks to
strong policy support in key countries and sharp cost reductions.
Renewables have surpassed coal last year to become the largest
source of installed power capacity in the world.

The latest edition of the IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Market Report
now sees renewables growing 13% more between 2015 and 2021 than it
did in last year’s forecast, due mostly to stronger policy backing
in the United States, China, India and Mexico. Over the forecast
period, costs are expected to drop by a quarter in solar PV and 15
percent for onshore wind.

Last year marked a turning point for renewables. Led by wind and
solar, renewables represented more than half the new power capacity
around the world, reaching a record 153 Gigawatt (GW), 15% more than
the previous year. Most of these gains were driven by record-level
wind additions of 66 GW and solar PV additions of 49 GW.

About half a million solar panels were installed every day around
the world last year. In China, which accounted for about half the
wind additions and 40% of all renewable capacity increases, two wind
turbines were installed every hour in 2015.

“We are witnessing a transformation of global power markets led by
renewables and, as is the case with other fields, the center of
gravity for renewable growth is moving to emerging markets,” said Dr
Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director.

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Comparative Analysis: The cost of new power generation in South
Africa

Chris Yelland

Daily Maverick, 9 November 2016

http://tinyurl.com/nbdwh3o

In a presentation dated October 14, 2016, the head of CSIR’s Energy
Centre, Dr Tobias Bischof-Niemz, and Ruan Fourie, energy economist
at CSIR’s Energy Centre, provide a comparative analysis for new
power in South Africa based on recent coal IPP bid price
announcements by Minister of Energy Tina Joemat-Pettersson on
October 10, 2016, and other data.

This study is seen as important for any review of the draft update
to the Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity (Draft IRP)
currently in progress by the Department of Energy (DoE).

The Draft IRP was to have been presented to the Cabinet last week,
and thereafter made available to the public for comment, but this
has since been delayed, with no further dates being given.

Since the previous due date of end March 2016, the request for
proposals (RFP) for the proposed 9.6 GW new nuclear build in South
Africa has also been further delayed from the revised issue date of
end September 2016.

However, it is known that in the meantime various stakeholder
structures reporting to the Minister of Energy are currently
reviewing the Draft IRP and its proposals for new renewable,
baseload coal and nuclear power, and making further input and
recommendations.

The CSIR study shows the significant reduction in the cost of energy
from wind and solar PV generation technologies in South Africa since
submission of bids for Window 1 of the renewable energy IPP
programme (REIPPP) on November 4, 2011, to those of the expedited
round of Window 4 on November 4, 2015.

The result of this reduction is that new power from solar PV and
wind today is at least 40% cheaper than that from new baseload coal
today.

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AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
June 22, 2016 (160622 )
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“A new report by Tax Justice Network-Africa and ActionAid says that
East African countries (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda) are
losing approximately $2 billion a year of revenue each year by
granting tax incentives to multinational companies. … According to
Yaekob Metena, ActionAid Tanzania’s country director, ‘Though there
have been improvements in recent years in addressing the issue,
governments in East Africa continue to give away domestic resources
in tax incentives, funds that could pay for the regions’ education
and health needs and meeting the development objectives.'”

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This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a press release on this new
report from two of the organizations actively involved in the
Panafrican civil society campaign to stop illicit financial flow
from the African continent, which has been endorsed by the African
Union and is gaining worldwide momentum from a series of reports
from the Panama Papers and other investigative journalism.

The first report, on tax incentives, concentrates on the legal but
illicit policies that enable bleeding of resources from Africa to
multinational corporations through tax breaks. The second, from the
UN Environment Programme and Interpol, highlights the rapid increase
is losses due to black-market environmental crimes such as ivory
smuggling, illegal logging, and toxic waste disposal. Such crimes
are now the 4th largest illicit enterprise sector worldwide,
following drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and human trafficking,

For brief talking points and previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on
illicit financial flows and the Stop the Bleeding Africa campaign,
visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

For a database of articles and reports on illicit financial flows,
provided by the Stop the Bleeding Campaign but including data from
many sources, visit http://iffoadatabase.trustafrica.org/

For another hard-to-excerpt but revealing expose released today, see
Finance Uncovered’s investigative report on the shady financial
dealings holding up the renovation of the Rift Valley Railway (RVR).
The report is entitled “Trouble on the Lunatic Express,” and results
from a collaborative investigation by Kenyan, Belgian, and British
journalists. See http://www.financeuncovered.org/ – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/zz5v77d

“We have discovered that the fabled RVR modernisation programme has
not resulted in the purchase of new trains as claimed by the owners
of the railway, Qalaa Holdings.

We have trawled accounts which show that Qalaa has created an
offshore structure of shell companies which has extracted millions
in advisory fees from RVR, despite the railway suffering losses in
recent years.”

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

East Africa losing up to 2 billion dollars to unproductive tax
incentives

Governments have taken few positive steps to curb loss of revenue

http://www.taxjusticeafrica.net / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/gmrmhde

http://www.actionaid.org / direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/hthr9dj

Dodoma, 18 June 2016 – A new report by Tax Justice Network-Africa
and ActionAid says that East African countries (Tanzania, Kenya,
Uganda and Rwanda) are losing approximately $2 billion a year of
revenue each year by granting tax incentives to multinational
companies. The report follows the EAC report series produced by the
two organizations in April 2012, examining the impact of tax
incentives on the region and giving recommendations to the EAC on
how to end a race to the bottom. This follow up report assesses what
has changed since 2012.

The report, entitled ‘Still Racing towards the Bottom? Corporate tax
incentives in East Africa’, states that while statements indicating
commitments to revise tax incentive policies have been made by
policymakers of the region, many questions abound on how eliminating
tax incentives will be realized. It is unclear how these tax
incentives will be revised, costed and phased out in practice and
what resources and expertise are at the disposal of the governments
to carry out this work.

According to Yaekob Metena, ActionAid Tanzania’s country director,
“Though there have been improvements in recent years in addressing
the issue, governments in East Africa continue to give away domestic
resources in tax incentives, funds that could pay for the regions’
education and health needs and meeting the development objectives.”

East African governments have taken some positive steps to reduce
tax incentives, especially those related to VAT, which are
increasing tax collection and providing vital extra revenue that
could be spent on providing critical services. However, they are
still failing to eliminate all unnecessary tax incentives. Countries
are still providing generous tax breaks in the form of tax holidays,
capital-gains tax allowances and royalty exemptions and these East
African countries continue to lose colossal amounts of revenue
through unnecessary tax exemptions and incentives given to
corporations.

“There is need to shift the policy environment in the region on the
issue of incentives as; political and financial national and
institutional authorities have admitted that tax incentives are in
fact harmful to domestic revenue mobilization and need to be
revised, costed and in most cases eliminated. In fact, as our report
shows that giving tax incentives is still fueling competition at
1the EAC level, and derailing any meaningful progress towards
regional harmonization of tax policies. Regional competition for
investors through providing tax incentives is still alive and is
undermining integration,” said Metena.

The report follows the EAC report series produced by the two
organizations in April 2012, examining the impact of tax incentives
on the region and giving recommendations to the EAC on how to end a
race to the bottom. This follow up report assesses what has changed
since 2012. “Many leaders are promising to take greater measures
towards progress on this in the region but there is a need for
tangible actions to be taken towards that end,” said Tax Justice
Network-Africa’s Deputy Executive Director, Jason Braganza.

Evidence gathered suggests that collectively, the four East African
countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda) could still be losing
around $1.5 billion and possibly up to $2 billion a year. The report
calls for East African governments to review the tax incentives they
are granting with a view to abolishing all unproductive incentives.
Any incentives that are determined to be effective should be
targeted at achieving specific social and economic objectives that
benefit East African citizens.

“The East Africa Community (EAC) must accelerate the harmonization
of its tax legislation with the EAC Agenda by ratifying the East
African Code of Conduct on Harmful Tax Competition and implementing
at national levels, the recommendations of the African Union High
Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows that was adopted at the AU
Summit in January 2015,” added Braganza.

ENDS

Paulina Teveli
Communications Coordinator – ActionAid Tanzania
Tel: +255 (0) 22 2700596 | Mob: +255 755 706322
Email: Paulina.Teveli@actionaid.org.

Michelle Mbuthia
Assistant Communications Officer – Tax Justice Network-Africa
Tel: +254 724 994796
Email: mmbuthia@taxjusticeafrica.net

Editors’ Notes:

Four countries alone – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda – could
still be losing around $1.5 billion and possibly up to $2 billion a
year through the granting of corporate tax incentives to foreign
companies. Uganda loses around US$370 million, Kenya around US$1.1
billion, and Rwanda up to US$176 million. This amounts to, total
revenue losses that would amount to up to $2 billion a year.

The 2 billion a year figure (less than the 2.8 billion a year figure
from our 2012 report) reflects a welcomed commitment by the EAC
government’s. Governments have taken some positive steps to reduce
tax incentives, especially those related to VAT, which are
increasing tax collections and providing vital extra revenues that
could be spent on providing critical services. However, the figure
is exceedingly estimated and may well be short of reality as
accurate reliable data in most cases does not exist for all
incentives given to foreign firms.

While welcome statements indicating commitments to revise tax
incentives have been uttered by politicians of the region, many
questions arise how eliminating tax incentives will be realised. It
is unclear how these tax incentives will be revised, costed and
phased out in practice and what resources and expertise are at the
disposal of governments to carry out this work.

For Burundi, determining the revenue losses due to tax incentives
was particularly challenging in this case owing to an almost
complete lack of data. However, Burundi’s President Pierre
Nkurunziza, recently indicated that at least 81 billion Burundian
Francs ($52 million) has been lost to companies or officials who
have been given tax exemptions to import goods to build
infrastructure and instead sold on the materials.

In Tanzania, revenue losses from tax incentives given in 2014/15
were likely to be around US$790 million; although this figure
predates the new VAT law which is claimed will result in extra
revenues of US$500 million.

Kenya, the amount of revenue lost through tax incentives is likely
to be near the KShs100 billion (US$1.1 billion) a year level.

In Uganda, it remains unclear how much Uganda is losing to tax
incentives since government figures do not appear to provide full
figures, but the amount is likely be around US$370 million.

In Rwanda, estimates suggest that Rwanda is losing between Rwf 87
billion (US$115 million) and Rwf123 billion (US$176 million) a year.

ActionAid is a global movement of people working together to achieve
greater human rights for all and defeat poverty. We believe people
in poverty have the power within them to create change for
themselves, their families and communities. ActionAid is a catalyst
for that change.

Tax Justice Network-Africa (TJN-A) is a Pan-African initiative
established in 2007 and a member of the Global Alliance for Tax
Justice. It is a network of 29 members in 16 African countries.
Through its Nairobi Secretariat, TJN-A collaborates closely with
these member organisations in tax justice activities at the
national, regional and global level. TJN-A seeks to promote socially
just and progressive taxation systems in Africa, advocating for pro-
poor tax policies and the strengthening of tax systems to promote
domestic resource mobilisation. TJN-A aims to challenge harmful tax
policies and practices that favour the wealthy and aggravate and
perpetuate inequality.

*******************************************************

Environmental crime now the world’s fourth largest illicit
enterprise, says new report

June 13, 2016

http://www.africaeconews.co.ke/ – Direct URL –
http://tinyurl.com/jnjo59x

Environmental crime is now the world’s fourth largest illicit
enterprise after drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human
trafficking.

According to a joint report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
and Interpol (see full report at
http://unep.org/documents/itw/environmental_crimes.pdf), it is
estimated that the value of the black market industry behind crimes
such as ivory smuggling, illegal logging and toxic waste dumping has
jumped by 26 per cent from 2014 to between US$91 billion and US$258
billion annually depriving countries of future revenues and
development opportunities.

“Environmental crime has impacts beyond those posed by regular
criminality. It increases the fragility of an already brittle
planet,” observed Mr Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and
Unep Executive Director.

Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock says an enhanced law
enforcement can help address this worrying trend.

“There are significant examples worldwide of cross-sectoral efforts
working to crack down on environmental crime and successfully
restore wildlife, forests and ecosystems. Such collaboration,
sharing and joining of efforts within and across borders, whether
formal or informal, is our strongest weapon in fighting
environmental crime,” says Mr Stock.

Environmental crimes cover not only the illegal trade in wildlife,
but also forestry and fishery crimes. It includes illegal dumping of
waste including chemicals and use of ozone-depleting substances.

Destruction of natural flora and fauna, pollution, landscape
degradation and radiation hazards, with negative impacts on arable
land, crops and trees adds to the list.

The debate on environmental crimes also includes exploitation of
natural resources such as minerals, oil, timber and marine
resources.

In recent years, the joint report says, the debate has reached the
global stage due to its serious and deleterious impact on the
environment and ecosystems, as well as on peace, security and
development.

Environmental Crimes makes simpler for Illicit Financial Outflows

Illegal exploitation of natural resources, including ITW, has
negative consequence on potential revenues from tourism, timber,
mining, gold, diamonds, fisheries and even oil and charcoal.

These natural resources could have produced revenue for development
needs in health care, infrastructure, schools and sustainable
business development.

Indeed, the illegal trade especially in natural resources like fish,
timber and minerals undermine legal and sustainable businesses
through unfair competition and non-payment of legitimate taxes for
social benefits.

Currently, the scale of different forms of environmental crime is
likely in the range of USD 91–259 billion or twice the size of
global official development assistance (ODA).

This total amount of USD 91–259 billion is a loss to society because
the commercial activity takes place as an illegitimate enterprise.
It undermines governance, legal tax-influenced price levels, and
particularly legitimate business. An unknown proportion will
nonetheless be re-introduced into the legitimate economy through
money laundering.

A research by Development Initiatives (DI) on foreign aid and
stimulating domestic revenue mobilisation in Kenya and Uganda
revealed that tax revenue makes up the largest proportion of total
revenue, which is over 85 per cent for Kenya in the last three years
(and over 80 per cent in Uganda). It also found that ODA to domestic
revenue mobilisation in Kenya and Uganda amounted to close to US$
21.5 million in 2014 (with more funding to Uganda than Kenya).

DI suggests in order for the country’s efforts to mobilise domestic
revenue to bear more fruit, there is need to develop approaches that
increase tax revenue without necessarily increasing the tax burden.
However, broadening the tax base to mobilise more domestic revenue
might be undermined if attention is not given to leakages including
illicit financial flows.

Meanwhile, the Panama Papers showed that illicit financial flows are
not only an Africa problem, and that there is a need for global
collaboration to track them.

“Countries such as Kenya and Uganda should target job-creating
economic growth, and shift away from growth based solely on
extractive industries – oil and gas – and services that require the
employment of fewer people,” says the joint report. About 10 per
cent of the total amount is estimated loss of revenue to
governments. The number is based on two assumptions: That the
criminal activity generates an average profit of 30 per cent, and
that government tax revenues could be 30 per cent of the profits, if
the environmental crime activities had been legal and legitimate.

For an approximate comparison the average world total tax rate
percentage of commercial profits was 40.8 in 2015 according to the
World Bank. For the USD 91–259 billion range, with a profit of USD
27–78 billion, the tax income, which is loss for government revenue,
would be 8–23 billion, or 8.8 per cent of the total amount, giving
an average loss of government revenue of USD 9–26 billion.

The report points out an escalating species extinction due to wanton
wildlife poaching and trafficking. Illegal logging and trade results
in climate change emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation.

The reports adds that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing
has resulted into fish stocks depletion, loss of revenues for local
fishmongers and states. Most targeted fish species are Tuna,
Toothfish and Sharks.

Criminals exploit the lack of international consensus and the
divergence of approaches taken by countries. What may constitute a
crime in one country, is not in another. This effectively enables
criminals to go “forum shopping” and use one country to conduct
poaching, and another to prepare merchandise, and export via a third
transit country.

According to UNODC, corruption is the most important enabling factor
behind illegal wildlife and timber trade. Identifying the optimal
legal framework for preventing, combating and prosecuting
environmental crimes requires careful consideration.

There are proposals, according to the UN report on environmental
crime; firstly, designating any violation of wildlife or
environmental laws and regulations to be designated as “serious
crimes”. Another proposal is to designate illicit trafficking in
protected species of wild fauna and flora involving organised
criminal groups” as serious crimes.

In as much as the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime
(UNTOC) defines organised criminal groups, the new report recommends
a broader applicability of the convention on new and emerging forms
of crime.

In 2014, the Interpol General Assembly passed a Resolution on
Interpol’s response to emerging threats in Environmental Security
(Resolution AG-2014-RES-03). In that resolution, instead of defining
environmental crime, Interpol instead focused on “environmental
security” by recognising the impact that environmental crime and
violations can have on a nation’s political stability, environmental
quality, its natural resources, biodiversity, economy and human
life.

Interpol also recognises that criminal networks engaged in financial
crime, fraud, corruption, illicit trade and human trafficking are
also engaged in or facilitating environmental crime.

Experts say the approach by both Interpol and the Commission on
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) in regarding
environmental crimes more as a collective term, makes the
criminalities fall under already established laws on serious crimes,
including, but not limited to, serious financial and corporate
crimes, forgery, fraud including tax fraud, terrorist finance. Such
an approach provides prosecutors with far more powerful tools for
prosecution and prevention and importantly – proportionality between
offense, intent and punishment.

UN Security Council Resolution S/RES/2195 (2014), recognised that;
natural resources are increasingly driving conflicts.

Three conventions control the international trade and movement of
hazardous waste and dangerous chemical substances by setting
procedures and standards for import and export. Both the environment
and human health are exposed to hazardous waste and chemicals
through the cycle these products go through from production,
transport, use to disposal.

There are three interlinked conventions: the Basel Convention on the
Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their
Disposal, which primarily covers wastes trade; the Rotterdam
Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain
Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade and The
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants which
primarily covers chemicals, including restrictions on production.

The consensus based on Montreal Protocol of 1987, which controls
ozone depleting gasses (ODS), has been ratified by 197 parties,
making it universal. Projects worth USD 3.2 billion have been
approved by its executive committee to phase out over 450,000 tonnes
of substances with ozone depletion potential including the
implementation of Project Sky Hole Patching by the Regional
Intelligence Liaison Office of the World Customs Organisation in the
2000s. Unep, Unido, UNDP and the World Bank are the implementing
agencies of the protocol.

Unep Governing Council’s Decision 27/9 is the first internationally-
negotiated document to establish the term “environmental rule of
law”.

The decision emphasised the role of organised criminal groups in
trafficking hazardous waste, wildlife and illegal timber. The
Council recognised that environmental crime undermines sustainable
development, the successful implementation of environmental goals
and objectives, the rule of law, and effective governance.

The council also noted that these issues have been recognised in UN
General Assembly resolution A/RES/67/1 (2012) and A/RES/67/97 (2013)
which urged member states to address transnational organised crime’s
impact on the environment.

United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) reaffirms the need to
making illicit trafficking in protected species and forest products
into a serious crime as defined by UNTOC.

World Environmental Law Congress in Rio in April 2016, where the
Chief Justices, Heads of Jurisdictions, Attorneys Generals, Auditors
General, Chief Prosecutors and other high-ranking representatives
were gathered, agreed on a list of seven core principles to
strengthen the environmental rule of law.

The congress passed recommendations not limited to linking
environmental crimes to other crimes such as money laundering, and
strengthening courts’ capacity as guarantors of the environmental
rule of law.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
March 9, 2016 (160309)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

The choices for the future of the planet’s climate are ever more
stark in 2016. While the “incumbency” fossil-fuel system (as analyst
Jeremy Leggett terms it) remains powerful, the trends favoring a
more rapid transition to renewable energy are building much more
rapidly than almost anyone expected. Coal is clearly on the way out,
with the possible exception of South Africa, which continues to
invest in this outdated and deadly technology. And downward cost
trends in solar, wind, battery storage, and other renewable
technologies continue to accelerate both in developed and in
developing countries.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/clim1603.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
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According to GTM Research, the U.S. solar market is set to grow a
staggering 119 percent this year, while new reports also forecast
rapid growth globally and in Africa for “pico-solar” solutions
reaching those without access to electricity, with major positive
impact on income, health, and the environment. Meanwhile, however,
most countries are also still pursuing an “all-of-the-above” energy
strategy which has not yet abandoned new investment in the most
damaging alternatives such as coal mining and fracking.

[See http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/sa1503.php on South Africa.
And on the United States, in the midst of unresolved policy debates
over energy policy, note the Washington Post editorial passionately
depending fracking against the critique by candidate Bernie Sanders
http://tinyurl.com/zst4oeo).

This AfricaFocus contains (1) excerpts from a report from the
Overseas Development Institute on the rapid advance of off-grid
solar markets in sub-Saharan Africa, (2) a press release from
GroundWork South Africa on the failure of environmental assessment
of a new proposed new coal plant, and (3) an overview by Jeremy
Leggett of global trends moving towards renewable energy and the
looming (if uncertain in timing) death spiral for the economic
viability not only of coal but also of oil and gas.

For an up-to-date global overview of off-grid solar market trends,
see the report by Lighting Global and Bloomberg New Energy Finance,
published March 3, 2016 http://www.lightingglobal.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/ja35yng

For the latest GreenTechMedia Research on the U.S. solar market,
released on March 9, see http://tinyurl.com/hhhmstb

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletin’s on climate change and the
environment, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Accelerating access to electricity in Africa with off-grid solar

Andrew Scott, Johanna Diecker, Kat Harrison, Charlie Miller, Ryan
Hogarth and Susie Wheeldon

January 2016

Overseas Development Institute http://www.odi.org – direct URL
http://tinyurl.com/h2oay8f

The reports from this study include an executive summary, excerpted
below, as well as case studies from 13 different African countries
(Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra
Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.)

Introduction

Today, more than one person in five lives without access to
electricity; 48% are in Africa. Around 80% of those without access
to modern energy live in rural areas. Given the high cost and slow
pace of grid expansion to rural areas, decentralised options are
often the cheapest and fastest way to extend energy access (IEA,
2014). Solar PV systems are the cheapest source of electricity for
over one-third of Africa’s population – a figure that is rapidly
increasing with falling solar prices.

There is now a wide variety of technical options that can provide
off-grid solar electricity to individual households. These solutions
to the challenge of energy access range from pico-solar lanterns
(with a capacity of under 3 watts) to large solar home systems
(above 2kW capacity), which power several lights and electrical
appliances. New models of financing and distribution, as well as the
development of pico-solar lanterns, have been instrumental in
enabling low-income households to gain access to solar energy (Szabó
et al. 2013). This report considers the full range of solar devices,
using terms such as ‘solar households solutions’ or ‘solar off-grid
options’, except where it specifically refers to solar lanterns or
larger solar home systems (SHS).

This report was prepared for the Department for International
Development in support of preparations for the Energy Africa access
campaign, which aims to accelerate access to electricity in sub-
Saharan Africa through solar household solutions. It presents
evidence of the impact of solar household systems, reviews the
market in the region and 13 selected countries (listed in Table 1
below), and identifies the key policy measures to enable accelerated
access to electricity through solar household solutions.

The impact of solar household solutions

Impact on household finances

Poor households tend to spend a higher fraction of their income on
energy, often for vastly inferior levels of energy services. Rural
families across Africa spend ~10% of household income for 4 hours of
light at night using kerosene, torches or candles. Families with a
solar light save over $60 a year, spending just 2% of their
household income on lighting (SolarAid, 2012-15). Lighting Africa
(2010) reported that replacing kerosene lamps with solar lights
could offer returns on investment of 15-45 times the cost of the
light. The Africa Progress Panel (2015) reported that halving the
cost of inefficient lighting sources would save $50 billion for
people living below $2.50 per day. It estimated that these monetary
saving would be sufficient to reduce poverty by 16-26 million
people.

Moreover, households with access to a solar product that charges a
mobile phone can save money on charging fees. Off-grid households in
Africa spend on average $0.66 a week charging mobile phones, and
travel 28 minutes one- way to the nearest charging station
(SolarAid, 2012-15).

Impact on quality of lighting

Beyond financial savings, solar users benefit from extra lighting
hours and better quality and more reliable lighting. A SolarAid
(2012-15) survey found after purchasing a pico-solar light,
households increased the amount of time that they light their home
from 3.8 to 5 hours per night.

Impact on income generation

Improved quality and quantity of lighting can create opportunities
for income-generating activities by increasing the time available
for productive work. A number of studies found the availability of
solar lighting after sunset increased the likelihood that
enterprises will generate additional income by extending their
working hours. Solar products that enable energy services beyond
lighting create further income generating opportunities. Mobile
phone charging businesses are particularly common. Solar- powered
pumps also offer an increasingly attractive option for small-scale
irrigation systems, but often with capital costs that are too high
for low-income households.

Impact on health

By replacing kerosene lanterns, solar systems can help reduce
household air pollution. The fine particulates emitted by kerosene-
using devices exceed WHO guidelines. They impair lung function and
increase infectious illness (including tuberculosis), asthma, and
cancer risks. Poor lighting from kerosene lanterns is also
associated with compromised visual health (UNICEF, 2015).
Epidemiological evidence on the morbidity and mortality associated
with kerosene lighting is currently inconclusive.

Solar household systems can also keep families and communities safer
by replacing the use of flame-based lighting, thereby reducing
burns, accidents and fires. Poisoning often occurs as kerosene is
commonly sold in soda bottles and it can be mistaken for soda.
UNICEF (2015) reported that the primary cause of child poisoning in
developing countries is accidental kerosene ingestion, and burns are
identified as one of the leading causes of child injury. One third
of SolarAid (2014-15) customers interviewed in Uganda had
experienced fires, burns and/or poisoning from kerosene.

Beyond improving health through safe household lighting, larger
solar PV systems can improve the functioning of rural health
facilities by enabling better lighting, ICT for administration,
information, and aftercare services; laboratory equipment and
refrigeration for the storage of vaccines, blood and other medical
supplies. Over 30% of all health facilities in sub-Saharan African,
serving approximately 255 million people, lack access to electricity
(Practical Action, 2013).

Impact on education

There is clear evidence that better access to lighting provides
children with opportunities to increase the quality and time of
their study/homework. SolarAid (2012-15) found that school children
in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia rated limited lighting as
their main barrier to learning and do homework. After obtaining a
solar light, children increased their study time on average from 1.7
to 3.2 hours each night. Other studies found similar improvements,
but to differing degrees. Larger solar PV systems can also provide
rural schools with electricity. Practical Action (2013) estimated
that 65% of primary schools in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 90
million pupils, lack electricity.

Impact on the environment

Worldwide, kerosene lamps emit an estimated 270,000 tonnes of black
carbon per year, causing a climate warming equivalent of close to
240 million tonnes of CO 2 , a magnitude similar to the annual
emissions of Vietnam (Lam et al., 2012; WRI, 2015). Alstone et al.
(2015) estimated doing that, when black carbon is accounted, the
climate forcing from households using kerosene lighting is nearly 10
times as high as that of the typical grid-connected households in
Kenya. Harrison & Lam (2015) found that switching from kerosene to
solar can reduce annual household emissions by as much as 555kg CO 2
e.

An outcome of the growth in sales of solar household systems will be
the associated increase in electronic waste. Recycling and
electronic waste facilities are uncommon in Africa and there is a
low level of awareness of the risks, of battery disposal for
example. Some organisations have started recycling trials.

Impact on quality of life

SHSs can have significant positive impacts on quality of life. In
Bangladesh, 82% of SHS users agreed that their system had increased
their social status, stating that neighbours and relatives from
other villages visited their houses more often to enjoy the clean
lighting. Their SHS increased the amount of time that they engaged
in social activities (Urmee & Harries, 2011). In Africa, 85% of
pico- solar users said their solar light affected the activities
they were able to do at night (SolarAid, 2012-15).

Impact on communications and access to information

Solar household systems that offer more than just lighting can
significantly improve communications and access to information. In
Uganda, 80% of phone owners charged their phones using solar
systems, suggesting that access to SHS enables telecommunication in
non-electrified areas (Harsdorff et al., 2009). Access to reliable
and affordable charging for mobile phones can also facilitate access
to financial services such as mobile money; allowing rural and/or
unbanked populations to be served. In Bangladesh, 95% of SHS users
reported improved access to information through mobile phone, TV or
radio. Many agreed that by watching TV or listening to the radio
they had greater access to information and were more informed about
general news, health-related issues, weather and natural disasters
(Urmee & Harries, 2011).

Impact on livelihoods: through solar supply chain The development of
the solar market creates jobs and income-generation opportunities
throughout the supply chain. In Bangladesh, the Africa Progress
Panel (2015) found 114,000 jobs in solar panel assembly were created
in the last 10 years. Up to 15,000 new jobs have been created in
sub-Saharan Africa through the distribution of off-grid lighting
(UNEP, 2014).

The market for solar household solutions

The market for quality-certified solar products has grown rapidly
over the past five years, reaching almost 3.5 million units in 2014.
This market grew by 165% between 2011 and 2012, and by 204% between
2012 and 2013. The rate of increase fell to 27% between 2013 and
2014, and it may have declined in the first half of 2015.

Good market information about non-certified products is unavailable,
but Lighting Africa estimated that they had a 57% share of the total
market in 2012 (Lighting Africa, 2012). If non-certified products
are taken into account, the growth in the overall market may be
continuing.

Three countries – Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia – accounted for 78%
of the sales in 2014, reaching a market penetration of 15-20% of
off-grid households. These countries have a comparatively supportive
policy environment for solar household solutions. For the region as
a whole, market penetration is estimated to be around 3%.

The development of pay-as-you-go business models, which aim for high
customer density, and the growth trend of existing companies,
suggest that markets are likely to expand outward from their
existing location.

…

The main current trend is the emergence of the pay- as-you-go (PAYG)
model, under which ownership of the solar product is transferred to
the consumer after a limited payment period. The PAYG market is very
dynamic, with new approaches appearing quickly, companies changing
their approach, and others disappearing from the market. A recent
survey found that 60% of PAYG companies use mobile payments to
collect revenue (Lighting Global, 2015).

…

A simple model was therefore developed for the study, to understand
what it would take to achieve universal access to electricity under
three scenarios: Business as Usual, Sustainable Energy for All, and
Power for All. These scenarios assume universal access is achieved
by 2080, 2030 and 2025, respectively. The model under these
scenarios was applied to market in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole and
to the market in 13 selected countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya,
Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

**************************************************

GroundWork And SDCEA Appeal Colenso Environmental Authorisation

groundWork (Friends of the South Africa)
South Durban Community Environmental Alliance

Media Advisory

March 3, 2016

http://www.groundwork.org.za – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jsh7qrh

Durban & Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 3 March 2016 – groundWork
and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA),
represented by the Centre for Environmental Rights,   on 1 March
2016 launched an appeal to the Minister of Environmental Affairs
against the environmental authorisation granted to Colenso Power
(Pty) Ltd for its proposed coal-fired power station near the town of
Colenso.

The entire Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process was
conducted within just a few months, in keeping with the severely-
restricted timeframes in the latest EIA Regulations. groundWork and
SDCEA argue that these timeframes fail to provide an adequate
opportunity to assess the significant negative impacts the power
station is set to have on people and their ability to live in a
clean, healthy environment, or for interested and affected parties
to participate meaningfully in the EIA process.

“The DEA has not applied its mind to this environmental
authorisation, but instead pushed through the authorisation without
adequately considering critical impacts that the power station will
have on water, air quality, human health and climate change”, said
Bobby Peek, Director of groundWork, which is based in
Pietermaritzburg.

The appeal states that the Chief Director (as the relevant
Department of Environmental Affairs’ (DEA) decision-maker) failed,
in granting the authorisation, to give adequate consideration to,
for example: The National Environmental Management Act (NEMA)
Principles, the NEMA s24O factors, the need for and desirability of
the station and whether the application for the authorisation
included an assessment of all the impacts, including cumulative
impacts, of the proposed coal-fired power station. This is so
because the environmental impact report (EIR) for the power station:

* neglects to provide information which is crucial for purposes of
adequately assessing the proposed station’s impacts – for example,
the report does not state where and how the power station will
obtain two-thirds of the coal it will need to operate;

* contains incorrect information (for example, estimations of the
power station’s greenhouse gas emissions and total water
requirements which are significantly below the true extent of these
emissions and the actual quantities of water required); and

* fails to assess adequately the impacts that the power station will
have on, for example, climate change, air quality, water, and human
health.

The appeal also emphasises the impact of the current drought in
KwaZulu Natal. The failure to give this any consideration in
assessing the water impacts that the power station will have –
particularly on the Thukela river, and the communities and other
users that already depend on it is another ground on which the
authorisation should be set aside.

The Chief Director cannot be said to have met the NEMA requirements
or considered the impacts of the proposed power station, in
circumstances where the EIR is incorrect and lacks fundamental
information and assessments. In addition, the conditions and
mitigation measures proposed in the authorisation are vague. They
lack the necessary detail and rigour to limit harm to the
environment and human health once the power station starts
operating.

By granting this appeal, the DEA is setting the standard for one of
the first Coal Baseload Independent Power Producers to use 198m3 of
water per day – a conservative amount given by the EIR – in a
country where one million people already do not have access to the
minimum quota of 25 litres of potable water per day. Colenso Power
is looking to the Tugela River Catchment to source its water,
despite the country being in the midst of a severe drought.

If the declaration of the Highveld Air Priority Area has shown us
anything, it is that coal-fired power stations have a severely
detrimental effect on the health and well-being of people living in
their vicinity. Yet, and despite groundWork calling upon it to do
so, Colenso Power neglected to conduct a health study as part of
their EIA.

According to Desmond D’sa, Coordinator of the SDCEA, “The model of
development which has rested on the myth of mining as a source of
wealth for all, is slowly crumbling in the public sphere. Mine
workers across the country are disgruntled with indecent conditions
and low wages for risky work. Those that live next to mines and
power stations, but are without employment, are realising that such
‘development’ has largely been made up of empty promises.”

Contacts

Bobby Peek
groundWork, Director
Tel (w): +27 (0) 33 342 5662
Tel (m): +27 (0) 82 464 1383
Email: bobby@groundwork.org.za

Desmond D’sa
Coordinator, South Durban Community Environmental Alliance
Tel (w): +27 (0) 31 461 1991
Tel (m): +27 (0) 83 982 6939
Email: desmond@sdceango.co.za

***********************************************************

State of The Transition, February: “Most fossil fuel companies face
a future in which they might not have the capital to expand even if
they still want to.”

Jeremy Leggett, March 1, 2016

http://www.jeremyleggett.net – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/zuykvoh

[Excerpts. For full article see link above.]

The top ten stories from the drama of the Paris Climate Summit in
December and its aftermath through to end February are, I think, as
follows, as things stand. Key policymakers are now serious about
climate risk. Civil society has awoken in critical mass. Regulators
are beginning to regulate climate risk. Disruption is moving faster
than most people think. Utilities are racing to escape a death
spiral. The shale boom is going bust. The oil and gas industry faces
the prospect of a death spiral too. Divestment from the energy
incumbency threatens to snowball. Investor engagement with the
incumbency, in concert with unfavourable economics, will soon
threaten most capital expenditure on fossil-fuel expansion. The
legal system is fast becoming a driver for the global energy
transition.

…

3. Regulators are beginning to regulate climate risk

Mark Carney and Michael Bloomberg were key players in Paris. Carney,
the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chairman of the
Financial Stability Board, is the man most responsible for the
stability of the global capital markets. He intends to ensure
investors are provided with the right information so that they can
respond to the risks of climate change, and the threat of stranded
assets, by switching capital from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Bloomberg agreed in Paris to Chair an elite committee of business
leaders, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures,
that will make that happen. Behind closed doors, their deliberations
are already underway. Investors are waiting, sensitised to the need
for major change in the way the capital markets approach climate
change. This will be a vital drama to follow this year and next.
Expect significant diversion of capital away from fossil fuels as a
consequence.

4. Disruption is moving faster than most people think

Meanwhile, exciting news continues to flow for both renewables and
storage. Renewables accounted for almost two-thirds of new US
generating capacity in 2015, we learned in February: 3,500 times
more than coal. Almost 8 gigawatts of new wind was installed, and
more than 2 gigawatts of solar. Storage is heading for a
breakthrough year globally in 2016, industry analyses suggest.
Batteries lead the way, with an average price reduction of 35% in
2015.

…

6. The shale boom is going bust

We entered February with the low oil price accelerating the
mothballing of active oil and gas drilling rigs in the US shale
regions. The rig count is now down 70% from the peak in October
2014. Four of America’s shale gas regions had become void of all
drilling. We left the month with junk-rated debt accumulated by oil
companies in excess of $250bn, and debt issuance to the oil industry
grinding to a halt. One estimate, by Morningstar, suggests that
globally oil has to reach $65 a barrel to cover the average cost of
supply. Brent crude in February averaged little above $30 and on two
days averaged below $30. The IEA warned in February that the global
glut is such that the oil price would stay low for some time.

…

7. The oil and gas industry faces the prospect of a death spiral too

Bankruptcy is not just a concern for shale drillers. The low oil
price has meant that some $400bn of expected investment has been
cancelled or delayed, to date. Morgan Stanley calculates that out of
more than 230 projects ready to go this year, only nine are now
realistic. And if you are not drilling for new oil and gas, and
depleting existing reserves, how do you grow and generate cash in
the future? Especially if, as we have seen, explosive growth of cars
that need no oil is assaulting your market.

…

8. Divestment from the energy incumbency threatens to snowball

Institutions with well over $3 trillion of funds under management
are now divested or pledged to do so, and the movement is growing.
If anyone felt inclined to suggest that this isn’t a significant
threat to the oil industry, it became more difficult for them to do
so on February 25th, when Ali Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of
Petroleum & Mineral Resources, exhorted his industry to combat
divestment. “We must not ignore the misguided campaign to ‘keep it
in the ground’ and hope it will go away”, he said.

…

9. Investor engagement with the incumbency, in concert with
unfavouable economics, will soon threaten most capital expenditure
on fossil-fuel expansion

[Even] Investors who don’t divest give no free pass to oil and gas
companies. The lesson of coal is there for all to see, and many
investors have been badly burned by it. Share prices have collapsed
spectacularly. Banks including Goldman Sachs have concluded that the
coal industry is in structural decline. The bankruptcies to date
include America’s second biggest miner, Arch Coal. Pressure is
inevitably extending to the oil and gas industry. Executives  are
seeing previously unchallenged assertions and business models
interrogated as never before. Given everything summarised above, how
can this be expected to do anything but worsen in 2016?

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
December 10, 2015 (151210)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

As the climate talks in Paris draw to a close this week, the
countries present are still far from full agreement. Among the
latest surprises was the announcement by the Marshall Islands and
St. Lucia of a “Coalition of High Ambition Countries,” spearheaded
by small island states which are the most at risk of being submerged
due to climate change. The coalition  includes over 100 countries,
including the European Union countries and the United States, but
notable exceptions are the largest developing countries, such as
China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

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http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1512.php

Details of the latest negotiations are complex, the outcome still
highly uncertain, and positions within each of the many negotiation
alliances are themselves subject to change. The remaining stumbling
blocks as of today are summarized in this article in The Guardian,
which has been covering the talks extensively as part of its “Keep
it in the ground” campaign.

“The six key road blocks at the UN climate talks in Paris” The
Guardian, December 10, 2015 http://tinyurl.com/p2nakd8

What is agreed among virtually all observers and participants is
that the results of the conference will fall far short of that
needed to curb climate change short of even more catastrophic
results in the coming decades, added to the documented increase in
“extreme weather events” already making themselves felt.

The outcome will depend in part on the agreed words on paper in the
next few days, but even more on the practical effect of multiple
technical and political trends around the world, both positive and
negative.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains substantial excerpts from
articles on two particularly important issues beyond those in the
Paris text, namely the future of coal, and the threat to climate
action by governments coming from parallel and little noticed
negotiations in Geneva on the “Trade in Services Agreement” (TiSA).

There are also brief snippets from other relevant articles, on
agriculture, on critiques of the new OECD report estimating rich
country contributions to climate finance to date, and on rapid
advances predicted in renewable energy for both Africa and the
United States.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate and the environment,
visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Year-end Break for AfricaFocus; Asking for your Support

With this issue AfricaFocus Bulletin begins a year-end break in
publication. Publication will resume in early to mid-January. As
usual, the AfricaFocus website and social media pages will continue
to be available.

This is also time for a reminder that while AfricaFocus is and will
remain free to you and other readers, it continues to depend on
support from those readers who decide to make a voluntary payment to
help support this work. If you are able to do so, and continue to
find this publication useful, please go to
http://www.africafocus.org/support.php to make a secure contribution
on-line or to download a form to mail in with your check or money
order. Although this contribution is not tax-deductible, it may be
deductible as a business expense.

Best wishes to all for the holiday season and for the coming year.

William Minter, Editor, AfricaFocus Bulletin

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

“Thousands of Planned Coal Plants, if Built, Could Doom Efforts to
Contain Global Warming”

by Maureen Nandini Mitra, managing editor, Earth Island Journal

Alternet, December 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/q8gmjzo

I landed in Calcutta (Kolkata, if you are a stickler for official
names) on November 30, the day the world leaders, policy makers, and
environmental activists gathered in Paris to figure out how to curb
climate change. Officially, it’s wintertime in this city of my
birth, but the air on Monday night was anything but chilly. Instead,
it was uncomfortably muggy. The only sign of winter was the hazy air
— a regular year-end feature in this overcrowded, traffic-choked
metropolis in eastern India.

The unusually warm weather might be an anomaly, at least that’s what
the local weathermen say, but in my experience, winters here have
certainly become milder in recent years. (While winter is receding
here, the waters are rising. Calcutta is among coastal cities across
the world most vulnerable to increased flooding due to climate
change.)

Meanwhile farther south by the tip of the Indian peninsula, another
coastal city, Chennai, has been flooded for two months due to
torrential rains that have submerged homes and disrupted normal
life. The Indian Army has been deployed there to rescue people
stranded in their homes. The rains have broken a 100-year-old record
with one day’s rainfall covering an entire month’s average in a city
that’s more used to blazing heat than damp days.

When I spoke with a journalist friend living there last morning
(it’s past 3 a.m. Thursday morning here as I write this), she was
stuck in her second floor apartment with her invalid mother and
little girl with no power. Her cellphone, the only way she can
connect with the outside world, had barely any charge left. The
first floor of her building was completely inundated and she feared
the waters would soon rise further. “Even if the rescue boats come,
I can’t leave because they most likely won’t be able to evacuate my
mother,” she told me, before I hung up, not wanting to waste her
cellphone charge needlessly. I haven’t heard from her since.

This is it: the real, harsh, personal face of climate change. Given
such stark news, it was doubly depressing to read a new report  by
Climate Action Tracker that shows that thousands of new coal plants
being planned in countries across the world, including India, could
doom efforts to contain global warming.

If all the 2,440 coal plants in the pipeline were to be built, by
2030, emissions from coal power would be 400 percent higher than
what is consistent with a 2degC pathway, says the “Coal Gap” report,
which was released in Paris on Tuesday. Using data from Earth Island
Institute’s CoalSwarm project’s updated Global Coal Plant Tracker,
the researchers calculated the effect of coal-fired power on global
emissions and concluded that even with no new construction, in 2030,
emissions from coal-fired power generation would still be more than
150 percent higher than what is consistent with holding warming
below 2degC.

The researchers based their assessment on planned new coal plants
both globally, and in the eight countries that each plan to build
more than 5GW of coal power capacity: China, India, Indonesia,
Japan, South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey — plus
the EU28. In emerging economies, like India, the plants are being
planned in hopes of meeting rapidly increasing electricity demand,
while in the EU28, new coal plants will mainly replace existing
capacity.

Of course, the biggest offender here is China, which has 722 planned
plants that would emit 2.2 gigatons of carbon emissions a year. But
India isn’t lagging too far behind. The report notes that the large
amounts of new coal capacity planned in India and Turkey “could have
a relatively significant impact.”

“In India, stopping new coal fired power plants to be built could
mitigate 0.7 GtCO [gigatons of carbon emissions], provided low
carbon technologies are implemented,” it adds.

The researchers say, ideally, plans for these plants should be
canceled, but I sincerely doubt that will happen. At least not here
in India, where coal companies have deep ties with the political
class, and where the environment minister (who’s currently in Paris)
gives that same old line about the floods in Chennai being a
“natural calamity” that “can’t be directly linked to climate
change.”

*******************************************************************

The Coal Gap: planned coal-fired power plants inconsistent with
2degC and threaten achievement of INDCs

Climate Action Tracker, Dec. 1, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/h7b7jfp

Summary

* Holding temperature increase below 2degC, or below 1.5degC by
2100, requires a rapid decarbonisation of the global power sector.
IPCC AR5 scenarios indicate that this sector needs to reach zero
carbon emissions globally around 2050, 35 years hence. This means
phasing out emissions from coal-fired power by 2050.

* Even with no new construction, emissions from coal-fired power
generation in 2030 would still be 150% higher than what is
consistent with scenarios limiting warming to below 2degC above pre-
industrial levels (middle of the range). If the planned new coal
capacity – estimated by the Global Coal Plant Tracker – were to be
built, it would exceed the required levels by 400%.

* The planned new coal plants alone (globally, 2440 plants,
totalling 1428 GW) could emit approximately 6.5 GtCO2 , 16 – 18% of
the total allowed emissions in 2030 (under a 2degC-compatible
scenario). Including existing capacity with a technical lifetime
beyond 2030, total annual emissions from coal-fired power generation
could reach 12 GtCO2 in 2030.

* The CAT has assessed the impact of planned new coal plants both
globally, and in the eight countries that each plan to build more
than 5GW of coal power capacity: China, India, Indonesia, Japan,
South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey – plus the EU28.
[The USA only plans to expand coal capacity by 3.5 GW.]

* Of these nine countries (incl. EU28) all have a CAT-rated INDC of
“inadequate” or “medium” (i.e. not sufficient to keep warming below
2degC), and have “current policy pathways” that are even less
ambitious. Their combined planned new coal capacity (2011 new coal
plants, totalling 1210 GW) could put them in an even worse
situation, adding emissions of around 1.5 GtCO2 to the CAT’s
projected currently policy levels.

* In seven of the nine studied countries – China, EU28, India,
Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey – planned coal plants
threatens the achievement of the already only medium or inadequate
INDCs.

* The estimated emissions impact of planned plants that have been
announced and pre- permitted – i.e. not under construction or
permitted – would be 3.5GtCO2. Cancelling these plants could lead to
emissions reductions of 2GtCO 2 below current policy levels,
bringing countries closer to their proposed INDC levels.

[more at http://tinyurl.com/h7b7jfp]

*****************************************

Climate Deception: Non-binding “Targets” for Climate, but Binding
Rules on Trade in Services by Deborah James

Huffington Post, December 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/h6femp2

[Also note that the global Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS)
network works with PSI against the proposed TiSA. For more
information, visit http://ourworldisnotforsale.org/en/themes/3085]

The whole world is watching as world leaders from nearly every
country across the globe meet in Paris this week to set carbon
emission reductions targets to address global climate change.

Unfortunately representatives of 50 of the same governments are also
meeting this week in Geneva to negotiate binding rules that will
seriously constrain countries’ ability to meet those targets.

The 15th round of talks to create a “Trade in Services Agreement,”
or TiSA, are occurring once again in Geneva. Members of the TiSA
currently include Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Mexico,
New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, South Korea,
Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the U.S., and the 28 member states of
the European Union. How come everyone knows about the Paris talks,
but not those in Geneva? Because the Geneva talks are convened in
secret – precisely because the negotiators don’t want the public to
know what they’re up to.

The TiSA is modeled on the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS) of the WTO, which Naomi Klein has documented in her book,
This Changes Everything, has been used extensively against
environmental policies. Yet the point of the TiSA is to go further
than the GATS because corporations see the existing rules as not
“ambitious enough.” The financial services, logistics and
technological corporations, largely in the United States and also
the EU, are attempting to expand the WTO’s GATS to develop a set of
deregulation and privatization rules that constrain public oversight
of how services operate domestically and globally, setting aside
environmental, labor, and development issues in favor of
transnational corporate rights to operate and profit.

Fortunately, Wikileaks has come again to the rescue. Today they are
publishing analysis and secret, leaked proposals that would create
far-reaching rules that give corporations rights to access markets
and limit public oversight of environmental and energy services and
road transportation in TiSA member countries.

The analysis of a proposal for an “Energy Related Services (ERS)”
annex of the TiSA would give “rights” to foreign energy corporations
in domestic markets. Far from mandating reductions in carbon
emissions or promoting access for poor countries to clean
technologies, the proposed TiSA annex would actually limit the
ability of governments (on national, regional, or local levels) to
set policies that differentiate between polluting and carbon-based
energy sources, such as oil and coal, from clean and renewable
energy sources such as wind and solar. This is according to the
“principle of technological neutrality,” revealed in the analysis of
the proposed chapter by Victor Menotti published by the Public
Services International (PSI) global union federation today.

Since reducing the dependence on fossil fuels is the basis of much
of today’s climate policy, it is hard to imagine how governments
could achieve the reductions in fossil fuel usage required by the
targets if they are not able to differentiate among energy sources.

Developing countries have demanded that principles of common but
differentiated responsibility become enshrined in any new climate
deal; the TiSA would instead sidesteps developing country concerns
raised at the WTO, and fails to include the (weak) flexibilities for
developing countries included in the WTO’s GATS.

In fact, a main point of the TiSA seems to be to “shift political
power over energy and climate policies from people using their
governments for shaping fair and sustainable economies to global
corporations using TiSA for restricting governments from regulating
energy markets, companies, and industry infrastructure,” according
to Menotti. This includes ensuring domestic economic benefits from
natural resource extraction, a key strategy for poverty reduction in
many developing countries.

…

Both the TPP and the proposed TiSA would restrict governments’
ability to use public procurement to promote “green purchasing,”
through the chapter disciplining government procurement, which in
the TiSA is cross-referenced to environmental and energy services
chapters. According to the analysis by the Third World Network,
government purchasing “provides a major source of demand for
domestic service suppliers and reserving that for domestic companies
(or otherwise preferring them) can facilitate social and economic
development, provide employment and business opportunities for
marginalized or disadvantaged individuals and communities and act as
a ‘wealth redistribution’ tool.” The leaked chapter on government
procurement in the TiSA would open up government purchases that are
subject to public tender, by all government agencies, in any amount.

Thus like the TPP, the TiSA constrains the ability of governments to
set policies that favor environmental job creation policies
advocated for by Trade Unions for Energy Democracy and the call for
a Just Transition developed by the International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC) and endorsed by We Mean Business, The B Team
and seven major civil society networks including CIDSE (the
international alliance of Catholic development agencies), Friends of
the Earth International, ActionAid International, Greenpeace
International, Christian Aid, WWF and Oxfam International.

[For more, read full article at more at http://tinyurl.com/h6femp2]

*****************************************************

Other relevant recent articles

(snippets only; for full articles see links)

“US Solar Market Prepares for Biggest Quarter in History” Greentech
Media, Dec. 9, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/zj7aho6

GTM Research expects the fourth quarter of this year to be the
largest quarter for solar installations in U.S. history. Led by the
utility-scale segment, the United States will install more than 3
gigawatts. Looking further out, cumulative PV installations will
nearly double between now and the end of 2016, bringing the
nationwide total to 41 gigawatts.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Africa plans renewable energy drive that could make continent
world’s cleanest,” The Guardian, Dec. 7, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/zubqq8e

The African Renewable Energy Initiative (Arei) plans to develop at
least 10 GW of new renewable energy generation capacity by 2020, and
at least 300 GW by 2030, potentially making the continent the
cleanest in the world.

The International Energy Agency, which has said that Africa is at
the “epicentre of the global challenge to overcome energy poverty”,
estimates that annual electricity consumption per capita in Africa
for 2012 was around 600 kWh, compared with the world average of
3,064 kWh.

The plan to accelerate solar, hydro, wind and geothermal energy
could see Africa leapfrogging other continents by developing
thousands of small-scale “virtual power stations” that distribute
electricity via mini-grids and would not require transmission lines,
which involve a loss of up to a quarter of power during the process.

+++++++++++++++++

“More countries reject OECD study of climate aid” The Guardian, Dec.
8, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/jt2zl48

China, Brazil and South Africa have joined India in rejecting a key
OECD study stating that rich countries have already mobilised nearly
two-thirds of the $100bn (£67bn) pledged to secure a new climate
deal.

The refusal by the world’s four most powerful developing countries
to accept the methodology used by western economists, to calculate
the money raised for poor countries to adapt to climate change,
suggests that finance will be the major hurdle at the end of the
talks on Friday.

The OECD study claimed that rich countries had already mobilised
$57bn of climate aid in 2013-14, as pledged in 2009. But Indian
government economists have claimed that the OECD study counted loans
made to developing countries and double-counted aid money, putting
the real figure closer to $2bn.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“A secret weapon to fight climate change: dirt” The Washington Post,
Dec. 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/z2hf4wd

We think of climate change as a consequence of burning fossil fuels.
But a third of the carbon in the atmosphere today used to be in the
soil, and modern farming is largely to blame. Practices such as the
overuse of chemicals, excessive tilling and the use of heavy
machinery disturb the soil’s organic matter, exposing carbon
molecules to the air, where they combine with oxygen to create
carbon dioxide. Put another way: Human activity has turned the
living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic
atmospheric gas.

It’s possible to halt and even reverse this process through better
agricultural policies and practices. Unfortunately, the world
leaders who gathered in Paris this past week have paid little
attention to the critical links between climate change and
agriculture. That’s a huge mistake and a missed opportunity. Our
unsustainable farming methods are a central contributor to
greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change, quite simply, cannot be
halted without fixing agriculture.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

Africa/Global: Climate Action Beyond Paris

AfricaFocus Bulletin
September 30, 2015 (150930)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Temperatures over subtropical southern Africa have risen at more
than twice the global rate over the last five decades.” – CSIR,
South Africa. *** “To date, 436 institutions and 2,040 individuals
across 43 countries and representing $2.6 trillion in assets have
committed to divest from fossil fuel companies.” – Arabella
Advisors, USA. *** “Kenya is emerging as a hotspot for off-grid
solar power. A 2014 study by M-KOPA Solar and InterMedia shows that
14 per cent of the surveyed population use solar as their primary
lighting and charging source.” – The Nation, Kenya

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1509.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1509.php

While news media in coming months may focus primarily on the global
climate summit coming up in Paris two months from now, it is already
clear to everyone that governmental commitments to reduce carbon
emissions to be made in Paris will fall short of that needed to curb
global warming short of catastrophic results for the planet [See
http://tinyurl.com/nq3m2wt for summary and links to a report on the
“intended national determined contributions” (INDCs).]

Even more than the results in Paris, however, the race to save the
planet and to limit the damage to regions already most affected,
particularly those in Africa, will be determined by actions before
and after Paris, around the world. Shell’s decision to stop drilling
in the Arctic in response to massive public pressure is one example.
The quotes above point to a few of the other places that action
is making a difference and can make more.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains two short articles and one
excerpt from a longer report on different fronts of the fight for
significant action on climate change and climate justice: global
fossil-fuel divestment, Africa-based and Africa-specific research on
the rapidly mounting damage from global warming, and one example of
the accelerating growth of off-grid solar power, particularly in
East Africa (See M-KOPA website at http://solar.m-kopa.com).

Another relevant article not included here is “55GW of Solar PV Will
Be Installed Globally in 2015, Up 36% Over 2014; Solar will account
for roughly half of new electricity capacity out to 2020.”
GreenTechMedia, June 17, 2015 http://tinyurl.com/pkkkttq
Note that GreenTechMedia (http://www.greentechmedia.com/) is a
fundamental source for following global technological developments
in renewable energy.

For talking points and previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate
change and the environment, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Measuring the Growth of the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment and Clean
Energy Investment Movement

Arabella Advisors, September 2015

[Excerpts only. For full report visit
http://www.arabellaadvisors.com/ – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/o6ng6p5]

Executive Summary

To date, 436 institutions and 2,040 individuals across 43 countries
and representing $2.6 trillion in assets have committed to divest
from fossil fuel companies. The divestment movement has grown
exponentially since Climate Week in September 2014, when Arabella
Advisors last reported that 181 institutions and 656 individuals
representing over $50 billion in assets had committed to divest. At
that time, divestment advocates pledged to triple these numbers by
the December 2015 Paris UN climate negotiations. Three months before
the negotiations, we have already witnessed a fifty-fold increase in
the total combined assets of those committed to divest from fossil
fuels.

* Pledges have spread to sectors not traditionally associated with
divestment, including pension funds and private companies. In 2014,
foundations, universities, faith-based organizations, NGOs, and
other mission-driven organizations led the movement. Today, large
pension funds and private-sector actors such as insurance companies
hold over 95 percent of the total combined assets of those committed
to divest.

* While historically based in the United States, the divestment
movement now spans the globe. In 2014, 78 percent of divesting
institutions were US-based. Today, 57 percent are US-based.
Institutions that have chosen to divest represent more than 646
million individuals around the world.

* Climate risk to investment portfolios is helping drive the
exponential growth of divestment. Reports by Citigroup analysts,
HSBC, Mercer, the International Energy Agency, Bank of England,
Carbon Tracker Initiative, and others have offered evidence of a
significant, quantifiable risk to portfolios exposed to fossil fuel
assets in a carbon constrained world. The leaders of several of the
largest institutions to divest in the past year have cited climate
risk to investment portfolios as a key factor in their decision.

* Thanks to increasing commitments to invest and a proliferation of
fossil free products, more capital is flowing toward climate
solutions. Globally, investment in clean energy reached $310 billion
in 2014. Among those pledging to divest, many are also committing to
invest in climate solutions: those institutions and individuals that
have pledged to both divest and invest in clean energy collectively
hold $785 billion in assets. Other Key Areas of Growth:

* The faith community is making a strong case for the moral
responsibility to act on climate and to provide clean energy access
to the world’s poor, bolstering the divestment movement. Faith
leaders of diverse religions and creeds are demanding our world’s
leaders take meaningful action to curb climate change at the UN
climate negotiations in Paris in December. Many are also divesting
their own assets of fossil fuels: 126 faith-based organizations with
a collective $24 billion in assets have committed to divest.

* University commitments have nearly tripled in the past year, as 40
educational institutions with $130 billion in assets have pledged to
divest. A number of prominent universities have committed in the
last year, including the University of California, Georgetown, and
Oxford. The University of California is the largest higher education
commitment to date, with a $98 billion portfolio.

* Divestment by state and local governments worldwide is also
growing: The California General Assembly voted this month to divest
its $476 billion public employee pension funds from companies that
get at least half of their revenue from coal mining. Providence,
Rhode Island became one of the largest cities to commit to divesting
all its funds from top coal companies. In Australia, the city of
Newcastle— home to the largest coal port in the world—voted to
divest, as did the government of the Australian Capital Territory.

* Foundation pledges have grown rapidly since September 2014, as 116
foundations with over $10 billion in assets have committed to divest
from fossil fuels.

The surge in the divestment and investment movement comes at a
critical moment, as the world’s leaders converge on Paris in
December 2015 to negotiate an agreement to curb catastrophic
warming. The growth of divestment is adding to mounting pressure
globally for governments to make meaningful commitments to
transition to a clean energy economy. Divesting and investing in
clean energy has offered millions of individuals across the world an
opportunity to take direct action on climate. A large and mobilized
constituency is now demanding political and financial action on
climate, and this pressure will likely continue to build
irrespective of the outcome of the negotiations in Paris.

A History of the Divestment Movement

The fossil fuel divestment movement was born when climate advocates
decided to directly challenge the fossil fuel industry. Inspired by
the moral arguments of the historical anti-war and anti-apartheid
divestment campaigns, a group of students launched a coordinated
series of divestment efforts on half a dozen college campuses in
2011, calling on their administrations to divest endowments from
coal and other fossil fuels and invest in clean energy and “just
transition” strategies to empower those most impacted by
environmental degradation and climate change. By spring 2012, the
campaign had spread to an estimated 50 campuses. Since then,
students, alumni, and professors have launched sit-ins, rallies, and
occupations of administration offices on campuses around the world.

The movement gained steam as the moral arguments of the student
divestment campaigns converged with an increasing recognition of
financial risks associated with investment in fossil fuels. In the
summer of 2012, author and longtime climate activist Bill McKibben
published “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” in Rolling Stone,
forging a link between fossil fuel divestment and the need to keep
global warming under two degrees Celsius (2° C). Drawing on the
groundbreaking analysis “Unburnable Carbon” by the London-based
Carbon Tracker Initiative, he argued that a broad-based global
movement should directly confront the fossil fuel industry because
its viability is rooted in existing carbon reserves that cannot be
burned without severe consequences for the climate. McKibben,
350.org, and other leading climate organizers threw their support
behind the student divestment campaigns, launching a global
divestment effort.

The movement quickly grew beyond universities as new sectors
responded to the call to act. A diverse group of faith
congregations, environmental NGOs, municipalities, and health care
organizations signed on as early adopters of divestment. Led by the
Wallace Global Fund, 17 foundations—controlling $1.8 billion in
assets—launched “Divest-Invest Philanthropy” in response to the
movement’s charge that foundations should not hold assets in a
fossil fuel industry that worked in direct opposition to their
stated missions. Ten cities, led by Seattle, announced they would
also divest from fossil fuels. “Cities that do so will be leaders in
creating a new model for quality of life, environmental
sustainability, and economic success,” argued Seattle Mayor Mike
McGinn.

As the broader climate movement reached a crossroads in the fall of
2014, the divestment campaign won global recognition as a critical
component of climate action. In September 2014, the world’s leading
climate advocates converged on New York City for Climate Week, which
included the “People’s Climate March,” an unprecedented event that
saw 400,000 people take to the streets to demand that the world’s
leaders act on climate. The week of action coincided with the United
Nation’s Climate Summit, which sought to catalyze meaningful climate
action in advance of formal international negotiations to reach a
global climate treaty in 2015. During Climate Week, divestment
advocates announced that, as of September 2014, 181 institutions and
local governments and 656 individuals representing over $50 billion
in assets had pledged to divest from fossil fuels. A report by
Arabella Advisors (http://www. arabellaadvisors.com/) found that, in
just three years, the divestment campaign had mobilized billions of
dollars in capital and engaged a broad segment of society in its
efforts to accelerate the transition to a clean-energy economy.

The movement’s growth was heralded by world leaders and covered
widely in the global media. Prominently featured was a notable
commitment by the heirs of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller
to divest the Rockefeller Brothers Fund endowment. The divestment
and investment movement was recognized in the UN’s formal climate
summit proceedings as one of many important actions to catalyze the
transition to a clean energy economy. At the same time, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu issued a stark call to action on climate, calling for
“an end to the fossil fuel era” and an “apartheid- style boycott to
save the planet.” In a press conference announcing that the
divestment movement had exceeded $50 billion in total assets of
those committing, leading advocates set the bar even higher for
2015, pledging to triple the total assets by the 2015 Paris UN
climate negotiations. Since then, the total combined assets of those
committing to divest has increased, fifty-fold, expanding in scope
and scale in ways no one fully anticipated.

****************************************************

CSIR projects drastic temperature increase over Africa

11 September 2015

CSIR climate modellers believe that 2015 is on its way to be the
warmest year ever recorded. This is partially due to climate-change,
and partially due to a massive El Nino event currently developing in
the Pacific Ocean. Temperatures over subtropical southern Africa
have risen at more than twice the global rate over the last five
decades.

Moreover, further warming of between 4 – 6 degrees C over the
subtropics and 3 – 5 degrees C over the tropics are projected by the
end of the century under low mitigation, relative to the present-day
climate. This was revealed in a CSIR study using a regional climate
model integrated on a powerful computer-cluster at its Centre for
High Performance Computing (CHPC), to obtain detailed projections of
future climate change over Africa.

This study comes ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s 21st Conference of the Parties (CoP 21),
due to take place in Paris, France in November 2015. This meeting
aims to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on
climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2 degrees C.

“If the negotiations fail to ensure a high-mitigation future, we are
likely to see rapidly rising surface temperature across the
continent,” says Dr Francois Engelbrecht, CSIR Principal Researcher
and leader of the study entitled, “Projections of rapidly rising
surface temperatures over Africa under low mitigation.”

Africa is particularly vulnerable to excessive temperature increases
due to the continent’s dependence on subsistence farming and rain-
fed agriculture. “For many regions, the impact of temperature
increases on the agricultural and biodiversity sectors may be
significant, stemming from temperature-related extreme events such
as heat-waves, wild fires and agricultural drought,” explains Dr
Engelbrecht.

Heatwaves are rare events over Africa under present day conditions.
The highest number of heat wave days occurs over the Limpopo river
basin region in southern Africa, the eastern interior and east coast
regions of South Africa and the Mediterranean coast of North Africa.
Drastic increased occurrences of heat wave days may be expected
across the continent under climate change, contributing to decreased
maize crop yield through the exceedance of critical temperature
thresholds increases in livestock mortality and adverse impacts on
human health. If a heat wave occurs during a drought, which dries
out vegetation, it can contribute to bushfires and wildfires.
Wildfires cause large financial losses to agriculture, livestock
production and forestry in Africa on an annual basis.

“Globally, Africa is the single largest source of biomass burning
emissions,” says Engelbrecht. “It is very important to understand
the impacts of increasing occurrences of fires on the African
savannas, as well as potential feedbacks to the regional and global
climate system”. Moreover, Engelbrecht and his co-authors point out
in the paper that general reductions in soil-moisture are plausible
to occur across the continent, as a result of enhanced evaporation
that occurs in response to increasing surface temperatures. “In the
subtropics, this effectively implies a longer burning season and a
shorter growing season”, says Engelbrecht.

Considering the fact that African temperatures in the subtropics are
projected to rise at 1.5 times the global rate of temperature
increase (an estimate that may be conservative) and the aim of the
upcoming UNFCCC negations seeking to keep global warming below 2
degrees C compared to pre-industrial temperatures – the Long Term
Global Goal (LTGG), Engelbrecht is of the opinion that the trends
and projections of rapidly rising African temperatures should be a
key consideration at the UNFCCC negotiations. “The relatively high
rate of temperature increases over Africa should be considered when
deciding on the suitability of the LTGG of the UNFCCC in terms of
climate-change impacts in Africa” Under low mitigation, the world is
likely to experience an increase in global average surface
temperature of 3 degrees C or more, and the relatively strong
temperature signal over Africa is of particular concern within this
context.”

The full paper, which has been published in Environmental Research
Letters, is available here: http://tinyurl.com/qxlzq59

***************************************************

“M-KOPA Solar connects 250,000 homes to power in East Africa”

Daily Nation, September 23, 2015

http://www.nation.co.ke – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/oyof6hz

In Summary

M-KOPA is one of the fastest growing power providers in the region,
connecting solar to over 500 new homes each day.

Each M-KOPA Solar home is calculated to save $750, compared to using
kerosene over a four-year period.

The battery-powered 8W home system has three lights, a phone-
charging facility and a chargeable radio.

By Edwin Okoth

A local ‘pay-as-you-go’ off grid energy provider has announced
connecting 250,000 homes across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to a
solar power system.

M-Kopa Solar which provides payment plan for supply of a solar
lighting system, a radio and phone charging apparatus said the
achievement was in line with its target to connect one million
customers by 2018 to its solar power systems.

The firm’s Managing Director and Co-Founder Jesse Moore said the
growth in connected customers was satisfactory as the region renewed
focus on renewable energy.

“Last September we celebrated 100,000 customers, and a year later we
are already at a quarter-million. With hundreds of great customers
coming on board every day, we are helping East Africa leapfrog over
the grid to enjoy cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable solar power,”
Mr Moore said.

Off-Grid Solar Power

Kenya is emerging as a hotspot for off-grid solar power.

A 2014 study by M-KOPA Solar and InterMedia shows that 14 per cent
of the surveyed population use solar as their primary lighting and
charging source.

M-KOPA is one of the fastest growing power providers in the region,
connecting solar to over 500 new homes each day.

The battery-powered 8W home system has three lights, a phone-
charging facility and a chargeable radio.

The savings generated by using off grid solar over kerosene are said
to be substantial for individual households and the broader East
African economy.

Alex Nduati, an Athi river resident became the plan’s 250,000th
customer when he purchased an M-KOPA III solar home system.

“I am so excited to take home a solar system that will give me much
more value than kerosene, and with M-KOPA’s daily payment plan it is
affordable for me. I purchased this system for my rural home where
there is no access to electricity,” Mr Nduati said.

Each M-KOPA Solar home is calculated to save $750, compared to using
kerosene over a four-year period.

This means that the combined projected savings by the 250,000
households using M-KOPA Solar is $187 Million.

The Nairobi-headquartered, M-KOPA Solar now has a network of over
1,500 direct sales agents and 100 customer service centres across
Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

 – from Zoltan Zigedy is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/

 

A hundred years from now, humans may remember 2014 as the year that we first learned that we may have irreversibly destabilized the great ice sheet of West Antarctica, and thus set in motion more than 10 feet of sea-level rise.

Meanwhile, 2015 could be the year of the double whammy — when we learned the same about one gigantic glacier of East Antarctica, which could set in motion roughly the same amount all over again. Northern Hemisphere residents and Americans in particular should take note — when the bottom of the world loses vast amounts of ice, those of us living closer to its top get more sea level rise than the rest of the planet, thanks to the law of gravity… (Washington Post, March 16)

The latest findings on climate change reported by the Washington Post mark another step on the path toward environmental catastrophe. Apart from philistines, apocalyptists, and other celebrants of ignorance, people understand that the growing degradation of our planet promises pain in the short run and disaster beyond. When humans first emerged on the planet, the environment, the climate, and other features of the natural world presented seemingly insurmountable obstacles to survival. The pre-history and early history of humankind was a tenuous struggle to construct bulwarks against natural calumny and a desperate effort to exploit nature’s meager offerings.

Nearly two hundred thousand years after the appearance of homo sapiens, circumstances have turned full circle. Humanity has found the means to dominate nature (though far from in a humanitarian way), but with seemingly little regard for the sustainability of the human project. Today, the formerly vulnerable species threatens to render the earth inhospitable to itself, a kind of mindless suicide by the only species that genuinely claims to own a mind.

For those determined to avoid this suicidal path, locating the cause and finding solutions is an urgent task.

Is “Progress” or “Growth” the Enemy?

It is fashionable in some quarters to locate the cause of the environmental crisis in the insatiable lust for “progress,” a term as elusive as it is imprecise. Harking back to the sixties and the “counter-culture” era, many envision a world where consumerism and the fetish for the new are banished in favor of a simpler life style and intellectual, spiritual, or artistic values. There is much to admire in a commitment to modest consumption and arrested acquisitiveness.

However admirable this may be as a personal choice, it is extremely short-sighted social policy. Certainly, the upper-middle classes of the developed countries could benefit the environment by exiting the insane competition for larger houses, more luxurious cars, and the latest techno-gizmo. Unquestionably, the mindless quest for more and better is neither admirable nor sustainable. But before we condemn progress or growth, we must recognize that more is at stake in rejecting progress or growth than thwarting rampant consumerism in the US and Europe or the vulgar excesses of the upper classes.

Apart from consumption madness, billions of the world’s population lack even the basics of sustainable life. They barely survive in the midst of poverty, disease, and inadequate shelter, food and water. Until the material means to rectify the sorry, inhuman plight of billions is available, progress and growth must be an imperative. To callously deny them a future out of scorn for hyper-consumerism is petty and, paradoxically, selfish. They cannot be made the scapegoat for Western privileged waste and excess. Those who so easily condemn progress or growth are shamefully blind to the inequities of class, race, and nationality.

Solutions

Prospective solutions come in many forms and many shades. Individual solutions are useful and defensible provided that they do no deny the disadvantaged the opportunity to achieve standards of living reasonably commensurate with the standards of the more privileged. For example, asking people without access to modern appliances to curtail usage of inefficient technologies is both irrational and unjust. Equality of sacrifice in the face of vast economic inequities cannot be the solution to environmental degradation. While recycling, re-use, and other personal conservation projects are necessary and meaningful, they are incapable of sufficiently slowing the global expansion and exhaustion of resources. Nor do individual, personal solutions offset the major sources of environmental destruction: corporations and governments.

Conventional policy solutions cluster around market-based and regulatory approaches to the environmental crisis.

Most environmental activists see the failure of either market-based or regulatory measures as a failure of political will. They believe that politicians and political movements have yet to recognize the dire consequences we face by ignoring the environmental crisis. While this may be true, it fails to recognize the acute limitations of market-based and regulatory solutions and the impossibility of their effectiveness in a global capitalist economy.

The political will is not absent because of ignorance, but because the political system is owned and nourished by the capitalists. Moreover, the global economy– overwhelmingly a capitalist economy– is fueled by profits and profits alone. And profits are sustained and expanded by turning everything material or immaterial into a commodity. As a commodity, nature’s resources hold no value other than what can be attached to the pursuit of profit.

It is the exploitation of human and natural resources– labor and nature’s bounty– that is the grist for profit’s mill. And capitalism puts profits ahead of nature as well as ahead of people. Both history and the logic of capitalist accumulation and expansion demonstrate the inevitability of waste and destruction. Only when environmental degradation impedes the process of accumulation and profit expansion will the capitalist system respond to the crisis; environmental scientists tell us that will be too late.

And that is precisely the point acknowledged by Naomi Klein in her recent book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Klein’s anti-capitalism, like so many versions associated with the social democratic, soft-left, has been somewhat fuzzy, vacillating between rejecting the neo-liberal incarnation of capitalism and something elusive, but more daring. But her current thinking is sharper, though still short of an endorsement of a coherent vision of socialism. She concedes: “But because we have waited as long as we have, and we now need to cut our emissions as deeply as we need to, we now have a conflict not just with neoliberalism, but a conflict with capitalism because it challenges the growth imperative.” (quoted in Monthly Review, Notes from the Editors, March, 2015). For this, Klein has been criticized widely by her liberal readers still anchored in fealty to capitalism.

The editors of Monthly Review perceptively point out that “Klein’s argument here is irrefutable. To be sure, in criticizing neoliberalism for removing the tools needed to address climate change she deftly avoids the issue of whether capital as a system could ever have seriously mitigated the problem.” (op. Cit.)

Capital cannot mitigate the problem.

The MR editors go on to persuasively argue:

Klein is realistic and radical enough to realize that her recognition of this necessity, together with her readiness to act on it, puts her and the entire left climate movement that she represents in conflict with capital as a system—and not just with its most virulent form of neoliberalism. It is, as she says, a “two stage argument,” and we are now in the second stage. There is no avoiding the fact that the logic of capital accumulation must give way if we are to have a reasonable chance of saving civilization and humanity. (op. Cit.)

For “the entire left climate movement” to move beyond individual solutions, market-based answers, regulation, rejection of neo-liberalism, and even capitalism, the movement must define and embrace another goal. What would it be?

Only a system that will replace the logic of profit-before-all with the broad interests of humanity can answer the question. Only a system that can supplant the anarchy of production and distribution with rational planning could count as an answer. Only a system that can substitute forward-looking public ownership for individual short-term self-interest will cope with the crisis. And only a system that erases the existing extreme inequalities associated with capitalism and imperialism can meet our need to bring social justice to the disadvantaged.

As reluctant as much of the left is to utter the word, the answer is quite simply: socialism.

The Unseen Elephant in the Room
Lost on most of the environmental movement, including the “left climate movement,” is the role of imperialism in stoking the environmental crisis. According to Wikipedia:

The United States Department of Defense is one of the largest single consumers of energy in the world, responsible for 93% of all US government fuel consumption in 2007… In FY 2006, the DoD used almost 30,000 gigawatt hours (GWH) of electricity, at a cost of almost $2.2 billion. The DoD’s electricity use would supply enough electricity to power more than 2.6 million average American homes. In electricity consumption, if it were a country, the DoD would rank 58th in the world, using slightly less than Denmark and slightly more than Syria (CIA World Factbook, 2006). The Department of Defense uses 4,600,000,000 US gallons… of fuel annually, an average of 12,600,000 US gallons… of fuel per day.

Add to this total the electricity and fuel usage of the rest of NATO, Japan, Russia, The Peoples Republic of China as well as those belligerents constantly at war with imperialism and you have uncountable and socially unnecessary waste of natural resources as well as ecological destruction.

Count the hundreds of military bases– outposts for imperialism– that devour resources better employed in a war to protect the environment.

Add to this total the unceasing pollution, the destruction of natural and man-made structures, the spoilage of land and water, etc. that accompany the endless use of devastating weapons.

The full effects of militarism and imperial aggression stagger the imagination.

Pentagon estimates of the production and maintenance of one weapons system alone– the F-35– have been reduced to over three-quarters of a trillion dollars– an enormous unmentioned cost to the environment.

Unfortunately, far too many environmentalists are more cognizant of the environmental damage of littering than they are aware of the enormous threat to the environment of imperial design and endless war. Joining the anti-imperialist, anti-war movement, fighting for an end to militarism, is potentially a far more effective way to reverse the ecological wounds that threaten the planet than the entire bundle of liberal and social democratic panaceas that currently dominate the discussion in the environmental movement: Prius, yes, but Predator drones, no.

As the environmental movement matures, it must embrace the socialist option. It must stand resolutely against militarism and its threat to the environment. No other stance will deflect “civilization” from its determined march toward self destruction. Authentic, militant environmentalism comes with partisanship for socialism and anti-imperialism.

Zoltan Zigedy

zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

AfricaFocus Bulletin
March 10, 2015 (150310)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

Africa, the continent with warming deviating most rapidly from
“normal” conditions, could see climate change adaptation costs rise
to US$50 billion per year by 2050, even assuming international
efforts keep global warming below 2 degrees C this century,
according to a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
report.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1503.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1503.php

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains the press release and excerpts
from the Executive Summary of the new UNEP report Africa’s
Adaptation Gap 2: Bridging the Gap – mobilizing sources.

The report contains updated data on the expected cost of adapting to
climate change under different scenarios for global warming, for the
time horizons of 2020, 2050, and 2100. Key messages include the fact
that Africa is already the continent where climate is already
deviating from normal more rapidly than any other continent.

Projections for impact rise enormously even if global warming is
held to less than 2 degrees C, and even more so if efforts to slow
global warming are insufficient to make that goal. This means that
the most important action to be taken is to limit the damage by
“deep global emission reductions.” Even if this is done, the costs
of adaptation will rise rapidly, requiring action to find new
sources of funding at national, continental, and global levels.

The report suggests a continent-wide levy (transaction tax) on four
sectors: extractive industries, financial and banking transactions,
international trade, and tourism. It also highlights the imperative
for national tax systems to be made more effective, including
minimizing reductions in the tax base from illicit financial flows.

For additional background on the current gap in international
climate finance, see the Feb. 26 article by Brookings Instution
analysts Martin Stadelmann and Timmons Roberts. They note that the
UN has issued a “clarification note” admitting that their estimate
of current levels of annual total North-South climate financing of
$40-175 billion is almost certainly closer to the lower than the
upper end of that range. See http://tinyurl.com/m9zo2pz

For talking points and previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate
change and the environment, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/envexp.php

Of related interest:
March 9 Guardian article by Bill McKibben
http://tinyurl.com/p2qg3we

“Pressure is growing. A relentless climate movement is starting to
win big, unprecedented victories around the world, victories which
are quickly reshaping the consensus view.”

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Costs of Climate Change Adaptation Expected to Rise Far Beyond
Africa’s Coping Capacity Even if Warming Kept Below 2 degrees C

Climate adaptation costs for Africa could soar to reach US $50
billion annually by mid-century.

United Nations Environment Programme

http://tinyurl.com/kb3llqg

Cairo, 4 March 2015 – Africa, the continent with warming deviating
most rapidly from “normal” conditions, could see climate change
adaptation costs rise to US$50 billion per year by 2050, even
assuming international efforts keep global warming below 2 degrees C
this century, according to a new United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) report.

Released at the 15th African Ministerial Conference on the
Environment (AMCEN), Africa’s Adaptation Gap builds on UNEP’s
Emissions Gap Report 2014, which showed that the world is not
currently headed in the right direction for holding global warming
below 2 degrees C. This latest Africa Adaptation Gap report also
builds on UNEP’s Global Adaptation Gap Report 2014, which found that
adaptation costs in all developing countries together could climb as
high as US$250-500 billion per year by 2050.

Produced in collaboration with Climate Analytics and the African
Climate Finance Hub, the report says deep global emissions
reductions are the best way to head off Africa’s crippling
adaptation costs. It also finds that the continent’s domestic
resources are insufficient to respond to projected impacts, but
would be important to complement international funding for African
countries – including meeting the Cancun climate finance commitments
by 2020.

“The accelerating rate of climate change poses great adaptation
challenges, of which we have been well forewarned,” said UN Under-
Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. “The
best insurance against the many potential negative impacts of
climate change is ambitious global mitigation action in the long-
run, combined with large-scale and rapidly increasing funding for
adaptation. Investing in resilience and adaptation as an integral
part of national development planning can develop resilience to
future climate change impacts.”

Africa’s looming climate crisis

Africa is the continent where a rapidly changing climate is expected
to deviate earlier than across any other continent from “normal”
changes, making adaptation a matter of urgency, the report says.

Warming projections under medium scenarios indicate that extensive
areas of Africa will exceed 2 degrees C by the last two decades of
this century relative to the late 20th century mean annual
temperature. Under a high warming pathway, temperatures could exceed
2 degrees C by mid-century across much of Africa and reach between 3
degrees C and 6 degrees C by the end of the century. This would have
a severe impact on agricultural production, food security, human
health and water availability.

In a 4 degrees C world, projections for Africa suggest sea levels
could rise faster than the global average and reach 80cm above
current levels by 2100 along the Indian and Atlantic Ocean
coastlines, with particularly high numbers of people at risk to
flooding in the coastal cities of Mozambique, Tanzania, Cameroon,
Egypt, Senegal and Morocco.

“This is not just a question of money; millions of people and their
livelihoods are at stake,” said Binilith Mahenge, President of AMCEN
and Tanzania’s Minister of State for Environment. “Africa’s
population will be at an increasing risk of undernourishment due to
increasing food demand and the detrimental effects of climate change
on agriculture on the continent. Global warming of 2 degrees C would
put over 50 per cent of the African continent’s population at risk
of undernourishment. Yet, the IPCC showed that without additional
mitigation we are heading to 4 degrees C of warming.”

“Rising to the challenge and addressing the systemic harm that
climate change may cause in Africa, thus undermining the post-2015
sustainable development agenda, warrants leaving no stone unturned
in exploring opportunities for supporting adaptation actions and
measures in Africa,” he added.

Closing the funding gap

The report explores the extent to which African nations can
contribute to closing the adaptation gap – especially in the area of
identifying the resources that will be needed.

The evidence suggests that African countries – such as Ghana,
Ethiopia and South Africa – are already committing some resources of
their own to adaptation efforts. Country-case studies in the report
suggest that by 2029/2030, under moderately optimistic growth
scenarios, Ghana could for example – based on hypothetical scenarios
– commit US$233 million to adaptation financing, Ethiopia US$248
million, South Africa US$961 million and Togo US$18.2 million.
However, international funding will be required to bridge the
growing adaptation gap even if African nations commit to ways to
increase domestic sources. Current levels of international finance,
through bilateral and multilateral sources, are not sufficient.

“Because of the magnitude of the challenge, further examination of
the potential and the feasibility of mobilizing untapped
international, regional and domestic sources should be explored
further,” said Mr Steiner.

Scaling up international climate finance under the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) may lead to sufficient funding
for adaptation, but even in that case, implementation can only reach
its full potential if complemented by comprehensive and effective
national and regional policy planning, capacity-building and
governance.

The promotion of an effective enabling framework for private sector
participation in adaptation activities would also be a key
contributor to closing the funding gap, the report finds.

For more information please contact: Michael Logan, News and Media
Officer, UNEP, michael.logan@unep.org, +254 725 939 620

**********************************************

Africa’s Adaptation Gap 2

Technical Report: Bridging the Gap – Mobilising Sources

Executive Summary

Climate change represents a clear and present danger to the
development prospects of Africa. African countries are going to have
to adapt to protect their peoples from the harsh impacts of climate
change and to ensure that they are not derailed from their current
development pathways.

Developed country Parties to the Climate Convention committed to
“assist the developing country Parties that are particularly
vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs
of adaptation to those adverse effects.” (UNFCCC Articles 4.3 and
4.4)

The first edition of Africa’s Adaptation Gap Technical report
(AAGr1) in 2013 provided an overview of the most relevant impacts of
climate change in different sectors across Africa, as well as cost
estimates for adaptation.

This report (2015 AAGr2) is directed towards exploring the extent to
which African countries can contribute to closing the adaptation
gap, in order to better understand the gap in the resources that
will be needed and, thereby, the likely extent to which
international climate finance must be urgently raised, leveraged and
deployed in service of Africa’s pressing adaptation needs.

Given the increasing severity of the adaptation challenge posed by
climate change to Africa, no stone should be left unturned in
looking for solutions for closing the adaptation gap, for two major
reasons: firstly, the case for international solutions is even
stronger if national and regional options are considered and
evaluated; secondly, it is in the interest of African nations and
their stakeholders at all levels to hedge against the possibility
that the funding provided through the Green Climate Fund and other
channels is insufficient or ineffective.

Building on the report’s findings, and relating to the current
negotiations towards the post-2015 agreement context under the
UNFCCC, African policymakers may consider the three following
findings:

1.  The best insurance against potentially catastrophic impacts of
climate change and unmanageable adaptation and (residual) damage
costs in Africa is effective and ambitious mitigation action that
leads to deep global emission reductions;

2.  Cancun climate finance commitments need to be met by 2020, the
historical imbalance between adaptation and mitigation in the
allocation of resources needs to be corrected, and ease of access
(‘modalities’) for African countries needs to be improved. Adequate
(large-scale, rapidly increasing) and predictable funding must be
mobilised for the subsequent periods;

3.  The potential for – and the feasibility of – mobilising untapped
international, regional and domestic sources should be explored
further.

An update on climate impacts shows increased urgency

*  Africa is beginning to experience annual-mean temperatures higher
than any locally experienced in history. This is already happening
in Central Africa and is projected to cover the entire continent in
the next two to three decades; earlier across Africa than any other
continent.

*  Warming projections under medium scenarios indicate that, by the
last two decades of this century, extensive areas of Africa will
exceed 2 degrees C relative to the late 20th century mean annual
temperature. Under a high warming pathway (“over 4 degrees C
world”), that exceedance could occur by mid-century across much of
Africa and reach between 3 degrees C and 6 degrees C by the end of
the century.

*  Combined with changes in water availability, for example, this
will likely have a severe impact on agriculture. 97% of sub- Saharan
agricultural systems are rain-fed, and 60% of the labour force
relies on agriculture.

*  Sea level rise is generally higher along Africa’s coastlines than
the global average, particularly along the Indian and Atlantic
Oceans. Sea levels are projected to rise at least 40cm above 2000 by
2100 in a below-2 degrees C scenario (close to 1.5 degrees C), and
to 80cm in an over 4-degrees C scenario (compared to roughly 70cm
globally). There are chances it could be much worse, with a 15%
chance of 100cm sea-level rise above 2000 by 2100 and a considerable
5% chance of a rise exceeding 130 cm by 2100.

*  Particularly high numbers of people are at risk of flooding in
the coastal cities of Mozambique, Tanzania, Cameroon, Egypt, Senegal
and Morocco.

Estimated adaptation costs point to a very rapid divergence between
globally low and high warming scenarios

*  The first Africa’s adaptation gap report (2013) stressed already
that past (global) emissions commit Africa to adaptation costs of
USD 7-15 billion/year by 2020.

*  This second report estimates that adaptation costs could rise to
about USD50bn/year 2 by 2050 for a scenario holding warming below 2
degrees C.

*  The estimated costs double to about USD100bn/year by 2050 for a
scenario reaching over 4 degrees C by 2100.

*  In the longer term, and relative to Africa’s (growing) GDP,
adaptation costs could rise to as much as 6% of African GDP by 2100
in an over 4 °C world, but in a below 2 °C world, these would be
less than 1% of GDP.

Adaptation cannot prevent all damages: residual damages will always
remain and are large

*  In a more general sense, the IPCC’s recent Fifth Assessment
Report (AR5) noted that even after implementation of potential
adaptation options, residual risks remain for many sectors in
Africa.

*  This, second Africa Adaptation Gap report confirms this in a more
specific sense: even if all cost-effective adaptation is realised,
Africa will still suffer large “residual” damages, which are
estimated to be double the adaptation costs in the period 2030-2050.

*  Africa and the international community will need to find ways to
cope with these residual damages, under any scenario of global
mitigation and local adaptation efforts. Current international
funding falls short and must be scaled up rapidly

*  The climate change challenge exceeds the capacity of the African
continent to respond to projected damages and impacts through
domestic resources, even if the base to raise additional funding is
broadened. Scaled-up international support for African countries is
therefore critical.

*  Current levels of international funding are not sufficient. So
far, while difficult to estimate, roughly USD$1-2bn a year is
flowing to Africa for adaptation, through a variety of sources.

*  A steep increase in adaptation funding from developed to
developing countries would contribute significantly to closing the
adaptation-funding gap. Therefore, increased adaptation funding
disbursements – in line with the USD100-billion target as agreed by
the Parties at the UNFCCC conferences in Copenhagen in 2009 and
Cancun in 2010 – could result in bridging the deepening adaptation
gap by 2020.

*  Such disbursements subsequently need to continue to grow rapidly
to keep pace with warming, and most rapidly if global mitigation
fails to put the world on a pathway to hold warming below 1.5 and 2
degrees C by 2100.

*  Recent positive developments in the operationalisation of the
Green Climate Fund are of critical importance for adaptation
financing in Africa. The GCF initial capitalisation was completed in
December 2014, with pledges amounting to around USD10.2bn. The GCF
Board has decided that 50% of its portfolio should be allocated to
adaptation and, in turn, that 50% should go to particularly
vulnerable developing countries including Least Developed Countries
(LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Africa.

The report’s approach: African case studies on adaptation

This report has taken the approach of exploring the additional
options and opportunities that may exist in Africa through four
country case studies – representing a reasonably diverse sample of
the great variety of countries and economies to be found within
Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa and Togo).

*  Each of these case studies explores aspects of the adaptation
response and, in particular, the scope for domestic adaptation
financing, in terms of the increased domestic adaptation resources
that could be generated through economic growth and tax reform,
through adaptation-specific taxes and fees, and through regulation
and market-making aimed at eliciting greater private investment.

*  The conceptually-simple calculations this report presents are
primarily intended to be illustrative of the limits and potential
for adaptation financing from domestic sources in a context where
strong growth is assumed and tax reforms are successfully achieved.

*  The evidence suggests that African countries are already
committing some resources of their own to adaptation efforts and
that there are opportunities for doing more that can be considered
and debated across the continent, with lessons to learn and share.

Options for sources of adaptation funds – international, national,
continental

As the report shows, there are a lot of adaptation options, measures
and sources that countries can mobilise and implement from the
national level to the international level to limit the deepening of
the adaptation gap under any level of global mitigation. The report
assesses:

*  Options at the international level – scaling up countries’
commitments and channelling through the Green Climate Fund and other
channels

*  Options at the national level – resources from national budget

*  Options at the continental level – levies

…

To address the multiple challenges of adaptation in Africa, there
will be no single solution that solves all the funding and
implementation issues African countries face. Addressing these
challenges will require the deployment of measures at the
international, continental and national levels.

A levy on transactions to pay for adaptation?

This report assesses, amongst other complementary options, the
potential effects of a levy applied on transactions.

Building upon similar international experiences in both developed
and developing countries, and political as well as economic
analyses, a levy on transactions in Africa is explored in four
sectors: extractive industries, financial and banking transactions
(including remittances), international trade and transportation
(including exports) and tourism. The estimated revenue shows that
even if such regional revenues were generated by the application of
these levies, however, adaptation costs would exceed the
revenue generation capacity as early as 2020.

Current and projected adaptation costs for Africa far exceed average
climate finance over the 2010-2012 period. Addressing this urgent
lack of funding will require the deployment of complementary
measures at the international, continental and national levels. Even
if for example a levy were regionally applied on transactions to
raise revenue for adaptation costs which would already exceed the
revenue generation capacity by 2020. Only a steep increase in
adaptation funding from developed to developing countries will
contribute to closing the adaptation-funding gap in Africa.

…

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