The African continent is the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to its dependence on rain-fed agriculture but can harness the potential for hydropower, said Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 28 Nov 2011

The African continent is the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to its dependence on rain-fed agriculture but can harness the potential for hydropower, said Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa on Monday.

Africa currently uses only 10% of its hydropower potential

“The challenge for Africa is to decouple economic and social development from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation to an extent which has no precedent in the developed world,” said Molewa, who is leading the SA’s negotiation team at COP17 in Durban.

Water shortages caused by climate change threaten agriculture and human health in Africa, she said. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted yields from rain-fed agriculture to shrink by half by 2020.

“This will spell famine for many,” she said.

Water shortages have already affected the agriculture and livestock industries in Kenya, she said, and African nations that currently have water surpluses will shift to water scarcity before 2025.

But Africa’s water resources could also rescue the continent from the effects of climate change in the form of renewable energy, she said. The continent currently uses only 10% of its hydropower potential.

“A national, regional and international effort towards unlocking this potential is an example of how African societies could go from being amongst the most vulnerable to become climate resilient,” she said.

Molewa repeated the SA government’s support of the “polluter pays principle”, imploring developed nations to fund green projects in developing nations, since they are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Africa contributes only 4% of global GHG emissions, but SA is responsible for almost half of that.

Molewa also highlighted the Africa Pavilion at COP17, which presents opportunities for green-development projects on the continent.

The effects of climate change on Africa are “unacceptable” and climate-change talks must “produce a credible, fair, equitable and balanced outcome” in the coming weeks.

Source: Business Live

South Africa will launch an ambitious project aimed at boosting its “green” economy and reducing the country’s carbon footprint during the United Nations Climate Change Conference starting in Durban on 28 November.

The South [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 Nov 2011

South Africa will launch an ambitious project aimed at boosting its “green” economy and reducing the country’s carbon footprint during the United Nations Climate Change Conference starting in Durban on 28 November.

The South African Renewables Initiative (SARi), set to be unveiled at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, will seek to catalyse the growth of a “green” industry through the financing of large-scale renewable generation capacity.

“SARi presents a key element in ensuring that South Africa meets the emissions targets set by President Jacob Zuma who, at COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009, committed South Africa to reducing its emissions trajectory to 34% below business as usual by 2020, and to 42% by 2025,” Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said last week.

An integral part of South Africa’s Industrial Policy Action Plan, SARi will help to develop capacity in related industries by designing a financial solution to encourage the roll-out of large-scale renewable generation capacity.

South Africa will be looking to use its international partnerships to help the country secure funding to enable an ambitious scale-up of renewables.

The launch of the initiative will be accompanied by the announcement of partnerships between the South African government and international governments and Development Finance Institutions to explore possibilities for further developing the renewables industry.

Davies said an initial design for a financing mechanism had been developed, which combined low-cost loans, insurance and other financial instruments with climate funding on a pay-for-performance basis.

“Success in the large-scale development of renewables could realise direct economic benefits of up to 40000 jobs, contribute up to 15% of South Africa’s Copenhagen Commitment, and decarbonise exports by up to 30% in increasingly carbon-sensitive international markets,” Davies said.

Source: allAfrica.com

South Africa will beef up its climate policy to ensure that all government departments responded well to the issue of climate change.

While details were still sketchy on how this would be done, Water [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 14 Sep 2011

South Africa will beef up its climate policy to ensure that all government departments responded well to the issue of climate change.

While details were still sketchy on how this would be done, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa on Tuesday said it was important that departments had a “common” strategy on how to help South Africa respond to global warming, which threatened development in poor countries.

“It is very important that as we host the Climate Change Conference in Durban, that we as a country start to demonstrate that we are serious about climate change and willing to take the issue forward in terms of policy,” Molewa said at a media briefing on Tuesday.

She confirmed that up to 194 participants from different countries will form part of the climate talks scheduled to take place from 28 November – 9 December.

Molewa said South Africa will also be using its position as a host to push for the implementation of several crucial political decisions that were taken at the Cancun round of talks last year. These included finance packages for poor countries and the extension or renewal of the Kyoto Protocol that binds nations to measurable carbon emissions reduction.

A new climate green fund — which Minister in The Presidency: National Planning Commission, Trevor Manuel, co-chairs — was agreed upon at Cancun to transfer money from the developed to developing countries to tackle the impacts of global warming, but no figure was put on how much money will go into it.

“We believe that Durban should be the place where we do something about all those decisions …on what to do with Kyoto and issues of adaptation, technology transfer and mitigation,” Molewa said.

The South African government, meanwhile, will be hosting a series of events during the build-up to the conference to get its people involved and educated about climate change. Campaigns will include educational road shows and community meetings in all the nine provinces in the coming weeks.

Officials had been holding talks with African ministers in order to present a united front at the international meeting.

Source: BuaNews

Countries need to pay more attention to fire management on lands bordering forests in order to prevent the 95 percent of wildfires that originate from human activities in forests and adjacent areas, an international [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 09 Sep 2011

Countries need to pay more attention to fire management on lands bordering forests in order to prevent the 95 percent of wildfires that originate from human activities in forests and adjacent areas, an international partnership for forests warned today.

Agricultural fires can spread quickly to nearby forests

The Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), which consists of 14 international organizations and secretariats, issued its warning as many countries are experiencing an increasing incidence in the frequency and size of wildfires due to lack of fire management policies and impacts of climate change.

“In many cases the fire starts on agricultural or pasture lands and spreads quickly on nearby forests,” said Pieter van Lierop, an FAO expert on forest fire management. “When people continue to burn rubbish and agricultural waste, clear lands by burning vegetation for agricultural or development purposes, or burn pastures to allow grass to sustain its high productivity, there is always a danger of large-scale vegetation and forest fires particularly under dry and hot weather conditions,” he added. “There are practical things that can be done to reduce the risks of fire escaping from agricultural areas.

All landscapes management approach to prevent fires

It is vital to think about fire prevention and suitable use of fire not only in forests but also through other parts of a landscape, in particular land in the vicinity of forests.  For example, people should try to avoid establishing large homogeneous forest areas in regions with fire-prone vegetation, which usually exacerbate fires, and instead maintain mosaic landscapes with natural firebreaks provided by combining different land-uses.

Burning agricultural waste early in the dry season before the surrounding landscape gets too dry and avoiding burning during high winds will help avoid big wildfires.

Activities on lands on or around peat soils require control. For example, mega-fires in the Russian Federation last year damaged more than 14 million hectares, killed more than 50 people and became almost uncontrollable mainly because nearby peat lands had been drained for irrigation of adjacent agriculture lands. This in turn affected the neighboring forests, which also became drier. Experience has shown dried peat land fires to be nearly impossible to extinguish.

More funds needed for fire management

CPF stressed that frequency and intensity of forest fires could be reduced by including fire management in broader landscape management strategies and through more integrated approaches to fire management — this includes not only fire suppression but also fire prevention, controlled burning, early warning and preparedness. All require increased investment.

“As most fires are started by people, countries should invest more in integrated fire- management strategies, especially in the often overlooked area of prevention,” said van Lierop. “Local communities should be trained on how to prevent vegetation fires throughout the whole year and not only during the fire season. More attention should also be given to monitoring wildfire carbon gas emissions as a potential contributor to climate change.”

Countries should also invest in research on the social and economic drivers of fire to be able to improve the way they are addressing the underlying causes of fires.  Ongoing research at CIFOR is showing that the preconceived notions of why and how fires start are not always right and at best managers only generally understand a part of the picture.

FAO is now forming a multidonor trust fund programme to raise funding to respond better to member countries’ demands. It is expected to be finalized by November this year.

The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) published guidelines on fire management in tropical forests in 1997 that provide a basis on which policy-makers and managers at various levels can develop programs and projects to address specific national, socioeconomic and natural problems related to fire in natural and planted tropical forests.

ITTO’s Executive Director Emmanuel Ze Meka endorsed the proposed multi-donor trust fund to be established by FAO to assist countries to deal with forest fires, noting that “We have the knowledge and policies in place to reduce the damage from fire in tropical forests – the main missing link is sufficient funding for training, equipment and monitoring technologies to be able to effectively implement such policies.”

Source: FAO

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that visiting Pacific nations threatened by rising seas had reinforced his belief that climate change was real and posed a genuine threat to humanity.

The island of [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 07 Sep 2011

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that visiting Pacific nations threatened by rising seas had reinforced his belief that climate change was real and posed a genuine threat to humanity.

The island of Kiribati is on the front line of climate change. Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP

Ban stopped in the Solomon Islands and Kiribati on his way to New Zealand for the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), and described the two small nations as “on the front line” of the climate change issue.

He said Kiribati, where some villagers have been forced to relocate as the rising ocean encroaches on their land, dramatically illustrated climate change’s impact on the planet.

“For those who believe climate change is about some distant future, I invite them to visit Kiribati or the Solomon Islands and most of the Pacific island countries,” he said in a speech at Auckland University.

“Climate change is not about tomorrow. It is lapping at our feet — quite literally in Kiribati and elsewhere.”

Ban said that in his role as UN leader he had seen the impact of climate change first-hand in areas of the globe ranging from Antarctica to the Amazon Basin and Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.

He said scientific evidence backed up his view.

“The science has made it plainly clear that climate change is happening now and, unfortunately, much, much faster than you may think,” he said.

“Having visited Kiribati and the Solomon Islands has strengthened my conviction that climate change is a distinct threat to humanity, it is even a threat to international peace and stability.”

Ban said the rising oceans were sending a signal that something was “seriously wrong with our current model of economic development”.

“We will not succeed in reducing emissions without sustainable energy solutions,” he said.

Ban is the first UN leader to attend the 16-nation PIF, which this year is being held in Auckland.

Source: Times Live

Arctic sea ice cover has already shrunk to its third lowest level on record this year, in an irreversible trend that may see an ice-free summer around 2030, said the head of the world’s [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 03 Sep 2011

Arctic sea ice cover has already shrunk to its third lowest level on record this year, in an irreversible trend that may see an ice-free summer around 2030, said the head of the world’s main monitoring centre.

The Arctic is on track to be completely ice-free in summer at some point this century

The sea ice area will be reduced further in the next two weeks but was unlikely to beat a 2007 retreat in a 32-year satellite data record, said Mark Serreze, director of the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Center.

While sea ice does not raise sea levels when it melts, just as melting ice in a glass of water, an ice-free summer would have implications for the exploitation of resources in the area, scientists say. It could also disrupt weather patterns or cause the Greenland ice sheet to melt more rapidly.

Exxon Mobil Corp and Rosneft signed an agreement on Tuesday to extract oil and gas from the Russian Arctic, in exploration which may be assisted by the recent trend of summer sea ice retreat north of Russia.

“The numbers today are saying that if all further melt stopped right now it would be the third most in the satellite record,” Serreze said today.

“We just dropped below 4.6 million square kilometres and that’s what we had in 2010 (at the minimum). We’re continuing the overall pattern of loss, and there’s still a couple of weeks to go in the melt season.”

“Will we break the record in 2007? I don’t think so but we’re going to be close.”

Sea ice floats in water and covers the North Pole, as distinct from ice sheets resting on land. The Greenland ice sheet contains the equivalent of about 7 metres sea level rise if it all melted.

The five biggest summer sea ice retreats have all been in the past five years, in a satellite record dating back to 1979, a trend which most scientists attribute to manmade warming.

The ice usually hits a minimum around mid-September each year, before growing again as cold winter weather returns.

The warming is exaggerated by an albedo effect where more open water without ice reflects back into space less sunlight, warming the local area more, leading to more open water, and so on.

Satellite readings also suggest that the sea ice is thinning, say researchers at NSIDC and other institutes, but such readings are less certain than the measurement of area.

“Everything we look at is all pointing in the same direction. Is Arctic ice cover thinning, absolutely it is, hand in hand with extent,” Serreze said.

“The long-term picture is very, very clear. There’s no going back now.”

Most scientists agree that the Arctic is on track to be completely ice-free in summer at some point this century, with sharp disagreement about exactly when. Having an ice-free summer in 2030 was “not unrealistic”, Serreze said.

Some climate sceptics have pointed to the shortness of the satellite record to cast doubt on identifying a new Arctic sea ice trend, or to blame man-made climate change.

- Reuters

Plants and animals are responding up to three times faster to climate change than previously estimated, as wildlife shifts to cooler altitudes and latitudes, researchers said on Thursday.

In Borneo, moths shifted 220 [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 22 Aug 2011

Plants and animals are responding up to three times faster to climate change than previously estimated, as wildlife shifts to cooler altitudes and latitudes, researchers said on Thursday.

In Borneo, moths shifted 220 feet upward on Mount Kinabalu

Scientists have reported this decade on individual species that moved toward the poles or uphill as their traditional habitats shifted due to global warming, but this study analyzed data on over 2,000 species to get a more comprehensive picture.

In this analysis, researchers found that on average, wildlife moved to higher elevations at the rate of about 40 feet per decade.

They are moving toward the poles at an average rate of 10.31 miles a decade, scientists reported in the journal Science.

The altitude shift is twice what scientists had estimated as recently as 2003, according to Chris Thomas, a professor of conservation biology at the University of York in Britain, and the leader of the project.

The average latitude shift is triple earlier estimates, Thomas said in a telephone interview. But he noted that not all species move toward the poles as quickly as that, some don’t move much at all and others actually move slightly toward the Equator, depending on what they need most to survive.

What became clear in this study, Thomas and the other authors said, was that species moved furthest in places where the climate warmed most, an unambiguous link to climate change over the last 40 years.

BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS

The key finding, Thomas said, was the “huge diversity of responses” observed in different plants and different locations.

“Because each species is affected by different things … when the climate changes, they will have different availabilities of new habitat that they might be able to move into,” he said.

Not every animal or plant shifts to a cooler place when its habitat heats up, because of pressure from other factors like rainfall, human development and habitat loss.

For example, a British butterfly, the high brown fritillary butterfly, might have been expected to move northward if the only factor affecting it was climate warming. Instead, the species declined because its habitats were lost, the researchers reported.

But the comma butterfly was able to make the leap from central England to Edinburgh, a distance of about 137 miles, in two decades.

In Borneo, moths shifted 220 feet upward on Mount Kinabalu, the study found. This area has been protected for more than 40 years, so habitat destruction was not a factor in the move, Thomas said.

Because of different species diverse reactions, he said, “it’s very hard to predict what an individual species is going to do … and that means that if you want to manage the world in some way, save species or whatever, unfortunately it looks as though a lot of detailed information is going to be required … in order to take practical action.”

By: Deborah Zabarenko
Source: Planet Ark

The right to food, health and shelter is threatened due to global warming, International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said on Monday.

In drought prone areas it is women who have to [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 Aug 2011

The right to food, health and shelter is threatened due to global warming, International Relations and Cooperation Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said on Monday.

In drought prone areas it is women who have to fend for their families

“Climate change affects the economic and social rights of countless individuals. This includes their rights to food, health and shelter,” she said.

The minister was speaking at a consultative dialogue on Women and Climate Change in Limpopo. She said that as climate change will continue to affect humanity, it was key to safeguard the lives of the people that are adversely affected, which are women.

“As incoming president [of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change], I will strive to ensure the centrality of women in all global fora to advance the multilateral efforts to address climate change, which impacts in a very pernicious manner on women, especially in developing countries,” said Nkoana-Mashabane.

Women, she said, are the propellers and carriers of development.

“In flood prone regions, it is women who have to deal with the impact. In drought prone areas, it is women who have to fend for their families ensuring that the children are fed, and that the sick and the indigent are taken care of.

“What we are actually seeing in Somalia are the prolonged consequences of climate change playing themselves out in a context of a country that is torn by civil strife.”

Nkoana-Mashabane said women in the developing world were responsible for the bulk of the food production.

“Women will have to labour harder and longer to ensure their families have food, fuel, and water. It is known that in Africa, women do 90% of the work of gathering water and food, and children, in particular girls, often share these responsibilities.”

The minister said climate challenges cannot be solved without empowering and educating women.

Meaningful interventions to address climate change were now required and Africa needed to adapt in a way which was conducive to the advancement of the emancipation of its women.

“Adaptation must therefore be central to the Durban outcome, with an urgent need for immediate and adequate support for the implementation of adaptation measures and actions, including through the provision of substantial new and additional public financial resources, environmentally sound technologies and capacity building in a predictable and prompt manner,” she explained.

She also added that financing mechanisms must also be flexible enough to reflect women’s priorities and needs.

South Africa will host the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Durban in November.

Nkoana-Mashabane also stated that the participation of women in climate change initiatives must be ensured and the role of women’s groups and networks strengthened, as women are currently under-represented in the decision making process of environmental governance.

“What are the most pressing issues for Durban? Most important is the issue of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only multilaterally agreed legal regime that sets concrete emission reduction commitments to mitigate climate change for developed countries.”

Source: BuaNews

Climate change could exponentially increase the scale of natural disasters while at the same time threatening world security, a senior UN official told the UN Security Council Wednesday.

Floods, such as the ones [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 21 July 2011

Climate change could exponentially increase the scale of natural disasters while at the same time threatening world security, a senior UN official told the UN Security Council Wednesday.

Floods, such as the ones that hit Pakistan, have implications on food markets

Though science cannot yet explain all the reasons behind global warming, “a changing climate is a reality,” and one that effects all sectors of society, said Achim Steiner, director of the UN Environment Program.

Steiner cited a worst-case scenario prediction that temperatures will rise 4 degree Celsius by 2060 while the sea level will rise one meter over the next century.

There are myriad threats already and their numbers will rise, he said, noting droughts like the one currently afflicting Somalia, floods such as the ones that hit Pakistan, and their implications on the food markets.

“The scale of the natural disasters will increase exponentially,” he added.

Two regions of Southern Somalia, hit by a devastating drought, were declared in a state of famine Wednesday by the United Nations, who called it the worst food crisis in Africa in 20 years and have mobilized efforts to stem the situation before it worsens.

“The signs of climate changing, not only is it happening, it is accelerating,” he added.

The famine and rising sea levels “are all threats to peace and security,” said Steiner. The next climate conference will take place in Durban in December and “must be decisive.”

Developed countries must manage their actions but emerging nations must also play their role and cannot be spectators, he urged.

- AFP

Polar bear cubs that swam long distances had a 45% mortality rate

Polar bear cubs forced to swim long distances with their mothers as their icy Arctic habitat melts appear to have a [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 19 July 2011

Polar bear cubs that swam long distances had a 45% mortality rate

Polar bear cubs forced to swim long distances with their mothers as their icy Arctic habitat melts appear to have a higher mortality rate than cubs that didn’t have to swim as far, a new study reports.

Polar bears hunt, feed and give birth on ice or on land, and are not naturally aquatic creatures. Previous reports have noted individual animals swimming hundreds of kilometres to reach ice platforms or land, but this is one of the first to show these swims pose a greater risk to polar bear young.

“Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears’ feet, forcing some to swim longer distances to find food and habitat,” said Geoff York of World Wildlife Fund, a co-author of the study.

York said this was the first time these long swims had been quantitatively measured, filling a gap in the historical background on this iconic Arctic species.

To gather data, researchers used satellites and tracked 68 polar bear females equipped with GPS collars over six years, from 2004 to 2009, to find occasions when these bears swam more than 50km at a time.

Mortality rate

There were 50 long-distance swims over those six years, involving 20 polar bears, ranging in distance up to 685.6km and in duration up to 12.7 days, according to a paper for presentation on Tuesday at the International Bear Association Conference in Ottawa, Canada.

At the time the collars were put on, 11 of the polar bears that swam long distances had young cubs; five of those polar bear mothers lost their cubs during the swim, representing a 45% mortality rate, the study found.

Cubs that didn’t have to swim long distances with their mothers had an 18% mortality rate, the study said.

“They’re a lot like us,” York said in a telephone interview. “They can’t close off their nasal passages in rough waters. So for old bears or young bears alike, if they’re out in open water and a storm hits, they’re going to have a tough time surviving.”

Two factors make it even harder for polar bear cubs to weather long periods in Arctic waters, said Steve Amstrup, a former scientist at the US Geological Survey and now chief scientist at Polar Bears International, a conservation group.

“Young bears don’t have very much fat and therefore they aren’t very well insulated and cannot cope with being in cold water for very long,” Amstrup said in the same telephone conversation.

Because they are leaner than their parents, Amstrup said, “they probably aren’t as buoyant so in rough water they’ll have more difficulty keeping their heads above water”.

Greenhouse gases

The Bush administration listed polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because of the decrease in their Arctic ice habitat. That decision survived a legal challenge in June, and this month, Canada listed polar bears as a species at risk.

The Arctic is warming faster than lower latitudes due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the melting of sea ice in summer accelerates the warming effect.

Arctic sea ice extent – the area covered by sea ice – in June was the second lowest in the satellite record since 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

- Reuters