Countries draw battle lines for talks on 2025 climate finance goal
20/2/2024: UN climate negotiators are currently staring at a long list of options and no agreed details for a new global climate finance goal that is due to kick in from 2025. The current annual $100-billion pledge had no basis in science and lacked any rules on what activities could be counted.
Source: Climate Home News
Why Kenya is hopeful but hesitant about the Loss and Damage Fund
31/1/2024: The new Loss and Damage fund established at COP28 is a crucial development for Kenya, a nation grappling with the ravages of climate change. However, there are concerns about the selection of the World Bank as administrators and about the tiny amount committed so far to the Loss and Damage Fund by developed nations.
Source: African Arguments
Africa’s life-sustaining water towers have been overlooked
24/1/2024: African countries have lacked resources to monitor the continent's critical water systems and the wide-ranging impacts on them from pollution, climate change, and increasing demand. Global research on water scarcity tends to focus on the presence of snow and ice to identify water towers, thereby omitting Africa.
Source: African Arguments
Concept of planetary boundaries modified for environmental justice
23/1/2024: The team that developed the planetary boundaries framework has merged the concept with social thresholds of tolerance, recognised in doughnut economics and the Sustainable Development Goals. The modified approach has been published in a scientific paper.
Source: Third World Network
Why a Nigerian coastal town is on the brink of extinction
15/1/2024: The US Agency for International Development estimates that 27 million to 53 million Nigerians may need to be relocated if sea levels rise by 0.5 meters, which the country is expected to see by the end of this century. In the coastal town of Ayetoro, the population has already fallen from 30,000 in 2006 to 5,000 today.
Source: Devex
Five maddening facts about climate finance
11/1/2024: High-income countries make it incredibly difficult to track their contributions to climate finance for poorer countries. Analysis by the ONE Campaign reveals awkward truths about inconsistent and inadequate reporting standards.
Source: African Arguments
Key COP28 takeaways for Africa
20/12/2023: The UN’s annual climate summit concluded with a mixed bag of results for Africa. This summary of progress includes the Loss and Damage Fund, adaptation, climate finance and a just energy transition. — issues that directly relate to African countries’ ability to meet their climate change and development goals.
Source: World Resources Institute
New loss and damage fund means many things to many people
12/12/2023: The next year or two will decide what exactly the new climate Loss and Damage fund responds to, how it will raise money, and how it will give it out. Answers to these difficult policy questions will be a crucial expression of climate justice.
Source: The New Humanitarian
Should Africa celebrate or mourn COP28?
14/12/2023: A panel of African experts and activists give their verdict on the outcomes of the Dubai climate talks. There is a recurring sense of injustice in the overwhelming presence of 2,400 lobbyists representing fossil fuel interests.
Source: African Arguments
Tropical deforestation increased in 2022
11/12/2023: Emissions from deforestation in the world's tropical forests rose by 5% in 2022, although Indonesia and the Congo Basin bucked this trend. A new carbon mapping tool developed by California-based nonprofit CTrees aims to help countries around the world input to the global stocktake of emissions.
Source: Mongabay