Africa

Sadio Mane will miss Senegal's "first games" at the World Cup because of a leg injury, an official from the country's football federation has said.

The BBC's Mercy Juma travelled to South Sudan where hundreds of villages have been affected by the floods.

Credit: Parents for Future UK

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Nov 15 2022 (IPS)

Lea is a three-year-old from Mexico who loves ladybirds. Siddhiksha, a six-year-old from India, has a passion for trees and wild animals. Rachelle is a 12-year-old Tanzanian who is wise beyond her years. They are smart and adorable and they are among the stars of a short film that is aiming to remind the leaders taking part in the COP27 UN Climate Conference that they have a duty of care towards young and future generations.

“My biggest anguish is literally not knowing what the world is going to be like,” says Cora, 13, from Brazil, in the film.

“I’m afraid the world could suck, with a lot of species not being able to survive 50 years from now”.

Meera, a 15-year-old from Chennai, India, says she sees the effects of the climate crisis every day.

“Lately, I’ve noticed that it’s very hot in Chennai and there are many unseasonal floods in Bangalore.

Parents for Future Global’s demands for COP27 are that nations must agree to no new coal, oil and gas projects and to stop subsidising existing fossil-fuel projects and that they pledge to start paying for loss and damage

“There are forest fires all over the world almost every day.

“This is actually becoming scary and serious”.

The video was produced by the Our Kids’ Climate and Parents For Future Global networks to send the message that it’s time to put ‘Kids First’ and deliver real climate action.

“The aim was to create a film that the kids could identify with, using a kids’ perspectives, making kids feel empowered and recognised,” Sandra Freij, the photographer and filmmaker who directed and produced the short, told IPS.
“We wanted to put kids’ voices before the decision-makers at COP because their voices need to be heard and they have so much to say”.

Children from 16 different countries feature in the film, speaking about their dreams and fears for the future.
Freij had the tough task of selecting them from contributions from almost 100 children sent in by parents from all over the world.

“It was super important for us to make sure we did not put words into their mouths. When we invited them to speak about their dreams we encouraged them to speak about simple things like football or rainbows,” she said.

“I never imagined we’d receive messages of such a grown-up nature.

“It was an emotional few months receiving message after message from kids that have connected the dots and who experience grief and fear about what the future holds”.

Our Kids’ Climate and Parents For Future Global are among several groups of people who are channelling their concerns about the impact the climate crisis will have on their children into action to bring about positive change.

Other groups include India’s Warrior Moms, who focus on the need to fight air pollution, and Britain’s Mothers Rise Up.

The latter group hit the headlines in June when they staged a spectacular song-and-dance protest outside the headquarters of Lloyd’s of London, inspired by the Let’s Go Fly a Kite scene in Mary Poppins, to tell the insurance giant to stop underwriting the fossil-fuel projects that endanger our children’s future.

Parents For Future is a network of independent national groups from countries both in the Global South and North.
The national and local groups take action that is most fitting to their contexts.

Parents for Future Italia, for example, prepared an ‘eco-manifesto’ outlining the policies the country needs to adopt to deliver climate action ahead of Italy’s general election in September.

Then these groups join forces at the global level.

Among other things, Parents for Future Global has been working hard to support the campaign for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. What makes this cooperation between different national groups possible is the recognition by all involved that you cannot solve the climate crisis unless you tackle the injustices that cause it.

And that means the countries of the Global North owning up to being largely to blame and taking action to remedy that via, among other things, loss-and-damage compensation.

Parents for Future Global’s demands for COP27 are that nations must agree to no new coal, oil and gas projects and to stop subsidising existing fossil-fuel projects and that they pledge to start paying for loss and damage.

The actions of these determined parents have not gone unnoticed.

“World leaders better watch out,” Dr Maria Neira of the World Health Organization said at the launch of the #KidsFirst film at COP27. “There is nothing worse or better than a mom fighting for the health of her children. “Now I have a lot of hope. This battle will be the one that we are going to win.”

France-born forward Bryan Mbeumo is relishing the chance to play for Cameroon, the country of his father, at the World Cup in Qatar.

This photo was taken a month after Cyclone Pam hit Tuvalu. It shows the main square of Nui Island was still underwater. The tropical storm went onto Vanuatu, impacting nearly half the island's inhabitants. Credit: Silke von Brockhausen/UNDP

By Busani Bafana
SHARM EL SHEIK, Nov 15 2022 (IPS)

Pacific island countries are highly vulnerable to climate change, and several have disappeared – and more could sink under the sea owing to a rise in water levels.

According to UN figures, severe climate-change-induced weather conditions are already leading to the displacement of about 50 000 people each year. Urgent assistance is needed to help them adapt and lessen its impacts.

COP27 opened with an impassioned plea by Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano, who called for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty at COP27. Addressing the world leaders, he said: “Tuvalu has joined Vanuatu and other nations in calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to steer our development model to pursue renewables and a just transition away from fossil fuels.”

A losing battle against climate damage

In 2015, the Island of Vanuatu was hit by a category five cyclone that killed residents, displaced thousands and damaged infrastructure. It was not to be the last. Another severe cyclone hit the island in 2020 after buffeting the neighbouring Solomon Islands.

Vanuatu is one of 20 countries that make up the Pacific Islands. They have a population of more than 2 million whose livelihoods are tied to the sea. The island nations face a future underwater if they cannot cope with the impacts of climate change and repair the damage it has already caused.

Nelson Kalo, a Senior Mitigation Officer in the Ministry of Climate change in Vanuatu, says resources are needed to build adaptive capacity. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“In Vanuatu, adaptation is a core issue to ensure we build resilience; otherwise, we will continue to see Vanuatu destroyed by cyclones and going under the sea,” says Nelson Kalo, a Senior Mitigation Officer in the Ministry of Climate change in Vanuatu, on the sidelines of COP27.

Kalo says climate change-induced natural disasters are impacting the area.

“We need resources to build our adaptive capacity so that in the future, we will be resilient to climate change,” he said.

Sea level rise, increasing temperatures and frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones, and storm surges are some of the climate change impacts facing island nations, some of which are in low-lying areas of just 5 meters above sea level at the highest point.

“In the Pacific Islands, the people are dependent on primary sectors, particularly agriculture and fishing, for their livelihoods, and we are seeing a variety of climate change effects across the region which are having impacts on livelihoods,” says Dirk Snyman, Coordinator of the Climate Finance Unit at the Pacific Community (SPC). The SPC is an international scientific and technical organization in the region that supports the rights and well-being of Pacific islanders through science and knowledge.

Ocean acidification and warming are affecting fisheries and causing the bleaching of coral reefs, which provide habitat for fish, a key source of food for islanders.

“In the Pacific islands, climate change is not some predicted future scenario based on projected models; it is a daily lived reality,” Snyman tells IPS. “It is becoming more and more difficult, particularly with crops and drinking water, for people to meet their daily needs that they now rely on imported food and drinking water, which come at a high cost.”

Snyman said the island nations had incurred economic and non-economic losses, such as cultural losses, and that a loss and damage facility is a timely intervention for them. The issue of loss and damage fund has made it on the agenda of the COP27 negotiations, which intensify this week in Egypt.

Mitigation

Pacific island countries have very low emissions and emit less than 1 percent of global emissions as a region. But despite these low emissions, the countries have developed ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement to be fully renewable in terms of energy by 2030.

“Compare that to any NDCs throughout the world … (Yet) Pacific island countries are struggling to get money for transitioning to renewable energy because the argument is always that they are too small or they have too little emission reduction, so they are not receiving the money to finance their NDCs,” Snyman said.

The climate financing needs for the Pacific Islands are estimated at between 6.5 and 9 percent of GDP per year, which is around 1 billion US dollars per year.

Snyman said current estimates of approved financing are around 220 million US dollars annually, which is only 20 percent of the 1 billion US dollars needed. He said multilateral mechanisms take up to five years to get financing, by which time countries would have experienced the worst impacts of climate change.

“Pacific countries feel very strongly that money should be made for loss and damage to compensate for these economic and non-economic losses that are unavoidable and that they cannot adapt to and that will continue to affect communities for decades,” said Snyman.

Espen Ronneberg, Senior Adviser, Multilateral Climate Change Agreements at SPC, says loss and damage will occur without ambitious mitigation action and reductions in GHG emissions.

Espen Ronneberg, Senior Adviser, Multilateral Climate Change Agreements at SPC, ambitious mitigation action and reductions in GHG emissions are needed. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“We are already experiencing some of these things to a certain extent in that the impacts are being felt right now, but we are also looking into the future and how those impacts will get much worse unless mitigation is ramped up and unless technical assistance, finance, for instance, are also ramped up,” said Ronneberg, who explained that available resources were not fit-for-purpose in addressing the current impacts of climate change in pacific island countries.

Ronneberg said Pacific island countries were ambitious regarding mitigation as they have some of the world’s highest energy costs due to fuel and natural gas importation costs. They have looked at energy efficiency through solar voltaic technology and are exploring wind and wave power.

“We have to look at the slow onset of impacts like sea level rise and changes in rainfall patterns. There may be opportunities for adaptation, but there is a point where you can no longer adapt – where an island becomes unliveable because of conditions,” he said.

Anne-Claire Goarant, Manager of the Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Division at the SPC, said adaptation was vital for implementing the NDCs in the Pacific islands but that there is a need to focus on robust mitigation programmes.

“We need the flexibility to describe the adaptation objectives to reflect the reality on the ground, and at this stage, we need transformative action,” Goarant told IPS. “We have to speed up the scale and amount of money that is available to implement action that will deliver some results in the short and long terms, for example, planting trees on a massive scale along the shores.”

“It is not just a small dot of adaptation action; we really need a global goal that can be implemented at a local level by local communities because the work will be done locally by the people who need to understand what climate change is and why it is important to adapt and how they can be supported.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The UN Secretariat building in New York City. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Peter A Gallo
NEW YORK, Nov 15 2022 (IPS)

The U.S. Government has recently published ‘Engagement Principles’ on Protection from Sexual Exploitation Abuse & Sexual Harassment within International Organizations’, and while any involvement from Member States is to be encouraged, these principles do not address the fundamental need for either deterrence or for accountability.

The concept of a “survivor-centred approach” – sadly – is an irrelevant sound bite to appease a political lobby. Post-incident care and support for the victim is not only admirable but very necessary but serves no deterrent purpose, and any bearing it might have on the prosecution of an offender will be indirect at best.

Nothing done for victims after an incident will prevent future victims being similarly assaulted.
One of the accepted tenets of criminology is that criminal activity is not discouraged by procedures, committees, working groups or focal points, nor is there any deterrent effect in increasing the penalty for anyone convicted of the offence; criminal activity is minimised by maximising the likelihood of the perpetrator being held accountable for their actions. The UN choses to ignore that, and will not acknowledge three basic truths the Member States must recognise:

FIRST: that any sexual assault is a serious criminal offence that should be prosecuted as such.

In the real world, where both a criminal case and a civil one arise from the same event; the civil case will be sisted to give priority to the more important criminal prosecution. The UN, however, does the opposite and insists that their administrative investigation take priority over the criminal investigation of the same incident.

As a result, even where a rape is reported in the UN, the chances of the perpetrator being successfully prosecuted in a criminal court is minimised to the point where the risk is insignificant.

SECOND: that while UN personnel require and deserve the protection of the 1946 Convention on Privileges & Immunities, that Convention does not grant immunity for sexual offences.

Abuse of the concept of immunity has greatly influenced the evolution of the UN culture into one of narcissistic entitlement, where sexual predators believe they can act with impunity.

Functional Immunity was afforded to UN staff members under the Convention which states, very clearly, in Section 18:

Officials of the United Nations shall : (a) be immune from legal process in respect of words spoken or written and all acts performed by them in their official capacity; (Emphasis added.)

Given that any sexual activity – whether consensual, contractual, or coerced – is not part of the “official duties” of any UN staff member; it is self-evident that no immunity can apply in the case of any sexual offence. If such an offence appears to have been committed; the host nation must therefore have jurisdiction over the matter.

The Convention was adopted to protect UN staff against harassment by a hostile government, and in those conditions, there will always be a risk that criminal charges might be fabricated. There is no doubt, therefore that the UN must take an interest in any accusations against staff members, but as soon as their preliminary enquiries establish reasonable grounds to believe that a sexual offence has been committed; the matter should be handed over to local law enforcement immediately – for them to proceed with a criminal investigation.

The Convention was never intended to protect offenders from the consequences of their own criminality. That is made clear in Section 20 which reads:

Privileges and immunities are granted to officials in the interests of the United Nations and not for the personal benefit of the individuals themselves. The Secretary-General shall have the right and the duty to waive the immunity of any official in any case where, in his opinion, the immunity would impede the course of justice and can be waived without prejudice to the interests of the United Nations.

If the Secretary-General can give an example of how the prosecution of a sexual predator could possibly “prejudice to the interests of the UN” – the world deserves an explanation.

The UN interprets the Convention to protect UN staff members from sexual offences even when no staff member is accused of any such thing, as was demonstrated in 2015 by the Organization’s response when French authorities sought to investigate allegations against French peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.

The Convention states in Section 21:

The United Nations shall cooperate at all times with the appropriate authorities of Members to facilitate the proper administration of justice, secure the observance of police regulations and prevent the occurrence of any abuse in connection with the privileges, immunities and facilities mentioned in this article.

That is a provision the Secretariat appears to ignore, because “immunity” was cited as the reason why UN staff members could not assist French investigators by introducing them to victims. The UN has never explained how that could be justified.

Immunity was created for the best of reasons, it has now become part of the problem.

THIRD: that ‘self-regulation’ by the UN has clearly been a failure; the Organization cannot properly investigate itself.

What most people fail to appreciate about the corruption in the UN is that it is almost always “procedurally correct” – which may mean the resulting administrative decision cannot be challenged before the UN Dispute Tribunal, it does not make the decision ethical or legitimate – but OIOS investigations will not pursue any such line of enquiry for fear of what it might reveal.

Complaints about malpractices, misconduct, bias or abuses of authority by investigators are common, but are routinely ignored – because there is no independent oversight of OIOS (Office of Internal Oversight Services) and the management of the office is tied up in the same network of mutually supportive patronage that is ingrained in the UN culture.

The OIOS “leadership” is widely believed to do the bidding of the USG/DMSPC in particular, legitimising the most patent retaliation – because the USG/DMSPC protects them from any accountability for their own shortcomings. The former Director of Investigations admitting that their primary objective was simply “to get the Americans off our backs” – for which, naturally, he was promoted.

As for sexual misconduct investigations; the term “survivor-centered approach” makes little sense. It is described as an innovative approach but in any sexual assault, the victim has always been the most important witness – so how exactly were these cases actually investigated in the past?

Post-incident care for the victim has no bearing on the burden of proof. Cases must be proved by established facts, and that requires diligent and competent investigators – not “investigators” promoted for their personal loyalty, or whose misconduct has routinely been overlooked for the same reason.

Gross incompetence by managers, rampant misconduct and corruption anywhere in the UN must be considered serious in its own right, but incompetence, misconduct and corruption in the investigative function is more serious because that facilitates the corruption everywhere else.

Einstein is said to have defined insanity as doing same thing over and over, and expecting a different result, but that has been the UN’s approach to investigating sexual misconduct for the last 20 years.

The solution clearly lies with someone capable of thinking differently – but within the UN culture; anyone who dares to think differently is a dangerous heretic who cannot be promoted.

Peter Gallo is a lawyer and former OIOS investigator, whose disagreements with the Organization began when OIOS sought to demand that as an investigator, he must “never ask questions just to satisfy his curiosity” – a bizarre instruction that the UN did not consider even unusual, despite the fact that no one was ever able to point out a single example of his ever having done so….He has written extensively on the UN’s failure to properly investigate misconduct, been quoted in the media, featured on television documentaries and twice testified before congressional committees on the subject.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Hezri A Adnan and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov 15 2022 (IPS)

The latest annual climate conference has begun in the face of a worsening climate crisis and further retreats by rich nations following the energy crisis induced by NATO sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Copping out again
The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is now meeting in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, from 6 to 18 November 2022.

Hezri A Adnan

COP27 takes place amidst worsening poverty, hunger and war, and higher prices, exacerbating many interlinked climate, environmental and socio-economic crises.

The looming world economic recession is likely to be deeper than in 2008. The likely spiral into stagflation will make addressing the climate crisis even more difficult.

Invoking the Ukraine war as pretext, governments and corporations are rushing to increase fossil fuel production to offset the deepening energy crisis.

Resources which should be deployed for climate adaptation and mitigation have been diverted for war, fossil fuel extraction and use, including resumption of shale gas ‘fracking’ as well as coal mining and burning.

War causes huge social and economic damage to people, society and the environment. The wars in Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere impose high costs on all, disrupting energy and food supplies, and raising prices sharply.

Russia’s Ukraine incursion has provided a convenient smokescreen for a hasty return to fossil fuels, as military-industrial processes alone account for 6% of all greenhouse gases.

The future is already here
All these have worsened crises facing the world’s environment and economy. The most optimistic Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario expects the 1.5°C rise above pre-industrial levels threshold for climate catastrophe to be breached by 2040.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Crossing it, the world faces risks of far more severe climate change effects on people and ecosystems, especially in the tropics and sub-tropical zone.

But the future is already upon us. Accelerating warming is already causing worse extreme weather events, ravaging economies, communities and ecosystems.

Recent floods in Pakistan displaced 33 million people. Wildfires, extreme heat, ice melt, drought, and extreme weather phenomena are already evident on many continents, causing disasters worldwide.

In 2021, the sea level rose to a record high, and is expected to continue rising. UN reports estimate women and children are 14 times more likely than adult men to die during climate disasters.

Popular sentiment is shifting, even in the US, where ‘climate scepticism’ is strongest. Devastation threatened by Hurricane Ida in 2021 not only revived painful memories of Katrina in 2005, but also heightened awareness of warming-related extreme weather events.

Stronger climate action needed
In international negotiations, rich nations have evaded historical responsibility for ‘climate debt’ by only focusing on current emissions. Hence, there is no recognition of a duty to compensate those most adversely impacted in the global South.

Last year’s COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact was hailed for its call to ‘phase-out’ coal. This has now been quickly abandoned by Europe with the war. And for developing countries, Glasgow failed to deliver any significant progress on climate finance.

At COP27, the Egyptian presidency has proposed an additional ‘loss and damage’ finance facility to compensate for irreparable damage due to climate impacts.

After failing to even meet its modest climate finance promises of 2009, the rich North is dithering, pleading for further talks until 2024 to work out financing details.

Meanwhile, the G7 has muddied the waters by counter-offering its Global Shield Against Climate Risks – a disaster insurance scheme.

Get priorities right
What the world needs, instead, are rapidly promoted and implemented measures as part of a more rapid, just, internationally funded transition for the global South. This should:

• replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, including by subsidizing renewable energy generation for energy-deficient poor populations.
• promote energy-saving and efficiency measures to reduce its use and greenhouse gas emissions by at least 70% (from 1990) by 2030.
• implement a massive global public works programme, creating ‘green jobs’ to replace employment in ‘unsustainable’ industries.
• develop needed sustainable technologies, e.g., to replace corporate agricultural practices with ‘agroecological’ farming methods, investment and technology.

Another world is possible
Another world is possible. A massive social and political transformation is needed. But the relentless pursuit of private profit has always been at the expense of people and nature.

Greed cannot be expected to become the basis for a just solution to climate change, let alone environmental degradation, world poverty, hunger and gross inequalities.

The COP27 conference is now taking place in Sharm-al-Sheikh, an isolated, heavily policed tourist resort. Only one major road goes in and out, as if designed to keep out civil society and drown out voices from the global South.

The luxury hotels there are charging rates that have put COP27 beyond the means of many, especially climate justice activists from poorer countries. The rich and powerful arrived in over 400 private jets, making a mockery of decarbonization rhetoric.

Thus, the COP process is increasingly seen as exclusive. Without making real progress on the most important issues, it is increasingly seen as slow, irrelevant and ineffective.

Generating inadequate agreements at best, the illusion of progress thus created is dangerously misleading at worst.

By generating great expectations and false hopes, but actually delivering little, it is failing the world, even when it painstakingly achieves difficult compromises which fall short of what is needed.

Multilateralism at risk
Multilateral platforms, such as the UNFCCC, have long been expected to engage governments to cooperate in developing, implementing and enforcing solutions. With the erosion of multilateralism since the end of the Cold War, these are increasingly being bypassed.

Instead, self-appointed private interests, with means, pretend to speak for world civil society. Strapped for resources, multilateral platforms and other organizations are under pressure to forge partnerships and other forms of collaboration with them.

Thus, inadequate ostensible private solutions increasingly dominate policy discourses. Widespread fiscal deficits have generated interest in them due to the illusory prospect of private funding.

Private interests have thus gained considerable influence. Thus, the new spinmeisters of Davos and others have gained influence, offering seductively attractive, but ultimately false, often misleading and typically biased solutions.

Meanwhile, global warming has gone from bad to worse. UN Member States must stiffen the backs of multilateral organizations to do what is right and urgently needed, rather than simply going with the flow, typically of cash.

Hezri A Adnan is an environmental policy analyst and Fellow of the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia. He is author of The Sustainability Shift: Reshaping Malaysia’s Future.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Dahir's brother died of hunger. Now two of his sisters are fighting sickness and malnutrition in Somalia.

By External Source
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Adit Adhikary lives in Bangladesh’s southern coast, where land is going underwater, salinity is destroying agriculture and drinking water is scarce. Will conversations at COP27 reflect the needs of his community?

Source: BRAC

Lemekhani Nyirenda was serving a nine-year prison sentence when he went off to fight for Russia.

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Where do people go when their homes are washed away?

In the 12 months since COP26, half of Lokkhi Mondol’s house has gone underwater.

Millions of people in coastal Bangladesh are living on borrowed time, as sea level rises and rivers swallow land.

COP27 must deliver urgent climate action – the world’s future depends on it.

Source: BRAC

By External Source
Nov 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 

As COP27 ramps up, come with BRAC’s ED Asif Saleh to the frontline of the climate crisis in southern Bangladesh – where homes are now going underwater every day.

We need climate action that gets to the ground, now.

Source: BRAC

Alaa Abdel Fattah tells his family in a letter from prison that he has resumed drinking water.

British soldiers were operating in the country as part of a UN mission countering Islamist extremism.

Goalkeeper Jojo Wollacott is ruled out of Ghana's World Cup squad after suffering a late finger injury with club side Charlton.

Ibtissam Jraidi scores a hat-trick as AS FAR beat nine-woman Mamelodi Sundowns 4-0 to win the Women's African Champions League title in Morocco.

A Dalit woman stands outside a dry toilet located in an upper caste villager’s home in Mainpuri, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Shai Venkatraman/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 14 2022 (IPS)

For those who have it, a toilet is that ‘thing’ in the bathroom, next to the bidet, the hand-washing sink with hot and cold water faucets, and the bathtub.

Given their ‘unprestigious’ function, some billionaires, in particular in the Gulf oil-producer kingdoms, fancy to pose their buttocks on a solid-gold toilet. Once they are there, why not also solid-gold faucets?

Many others prefer a more comfortable use of their toilets, thus endowing them with both automatic heating and flushing. And anyway, being given-for-granted, nobody would give a thought to the high importance of all these ‘things’.

The other side of the coin shows an entirely different picture. A shocking one by the way.

 

Billions of humans without one

And it is a fact that close to 4 billion people –or about half of the world’s total population of 8 billion– still live without access to a safe toilet and other sanitation facilities.

Nearly a full decade ago, the international community, represented in the United Nations General Assembly, decided to declare 19 November every single year, as a world day to address such a staggering problem.

And year after year, the UN continues to behave ‘politically correct’ by saying that progress and achievements were anyway made, however much would still be to do.

Despite such ‘correctness,’ the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, stated on the Day that the world is “seriously off track to keep our promise of safe toilets for all by 2030 – a crucial indicator in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Investment in sanitation systems is too low and progress remains too slow.”

 

Photo courtesy: Shelter Associates

 

The facts

Well, this year’s World Toilet Day (19 November) provides some shocking facts:

Death of the children: Every day, over 800 children under age five years old die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene.

Poor sanitation is linked to the transmission of diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera and dysentery, as well as typhoid, intestinal worm infections and polio. It exacerbates stunting and contributes to the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Globally, 1 in 3 schools do not have adequate toilets, and 23% of schools have no toilets at all. Schools without toilets can cause girls to miss out on their education. Without proper sanitation facilities, many are forced to miss school when they are on their period.

Open defecation: about 900 million people worldwide practice open defecation, meaning they go outside – on the side of the road, in bushes or rubbish heaps. It’s often a matter of where they live: 90% of people who practice open defecation live in rural areas.

Of these, 494 million still defecate in the open, for example in street gutters, behind bushes or into open bodies of water.

Moreover, the lack of sanitation services, just in the year 2020, stood behind the fact that 45% of the household wastewater generated globally was discharged without safe treatment.

Consequently, at least 10% of the world’s population is thought to consume food irrigated by wastewater.

 

Safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

 

The impact on underground water

Should all this not be enough, the 2022 World Toilet Day focuses on another invisible fact: the grave impacts of such a sanitation crisis on groundwater, which is the source of up to 99% of the world’s fresh water.

The 2022 campaign ‘Making the invisible visible’ explores how inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, polluting underground water resources.

However, this problem seems to be invisible. Invisible because it happens underground. Invisible because it happens in the poorest and most marginalised communities.

Groundwater is the world’s most abundant source of freshwater. It supports drinking water supplies, sanitation systems, farming, industry and ecosystems. As climate change worsens and populations grow, groundwater is vital for human survival.

 

The invisible dangers

The central message of World Toilet Day 2022 is that safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution.

See why:

Safe sanitation protects groundwater. Toilets that are properly located and connected to safely managed sanitation systems, collect, treat and dispose of human waste, and help prevent human waste from spreading into groundwater.

Sanitation must withstand climate change. Toilets and sanitation systems must be built or adapted to cope with extreme weather events, so that services always function and groundwater is protected.

The above shows how those ‘things’ in the bathroom can be life-saving.

Moreover, for those who are obsessed with measuring human suffering in purely money-making terms, it should be enough to know that providing adequate sanitation is a good business: each 1 US dollar invested in it means 5 US dollars saved in health services.

Climate activist Taren Chilia knows firsthand the impact of climate change on the island of Vanuatu. Cyclone Pam hit the South Pacific Ocean island in 2015, displacing nearly half of its 270 000 people. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
SHARM EL SHEIK, Nov 14 2022 (IPS)

The only thing Taren Chilia remembers about Cyclone Pam was that it flattened his school in Vanuatu, washing away books, equipment, and – well, almost his dreams too.

Cyclone Pam – a category 5 cyclone, was one of the worst to hit the South Pacific Ocean island in 2015, displacing about 45 percent of its 270 000 people. It also left several people dead and destroyed property, houses, and crops. Scientists say human-induced climate change is warming ocean temperatures, fuelling tropical storms driven by warm, moist air.

In Vanuatu, the cyclone tore through the Efate Island in Shefa Province, close to Port Vila’s capital.

Chilia, now 20, from Mele village, recalls fleeing rising water as the storm swept through his village.

“I was at home with mum and dad, and the school was closed, and everyone was in the house. We could not go outside, but we could hear the wind howling and the thunder strike when my neighbour came to fetch us to leave our house, which was not safe from the storm,” Chilia, who was then in his primary school, narrated to IPS on sidelines of the COP27 summit.

On the agenda of the global meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the issue of loss and damage and how developing countries can be compensated for the losses as a result of the severe impacts of climate change.

“As we rushed out of our house, I heard a loud roaring wave, and our village was flooded. The school was washed away, just like everything else around,” said Chilia, who was chosen to lay the first brick to rebuild the first block of classrooms in his village after the devastating Cyclone Pam.

With donations by well-wishers in Australia after Cyclone Pam hit, villagers were challenged to rebuild Chilia’s school within three days, and they did.

“We used big white tents donated by UNICEF as classrooms until we built the school. The whole village pitched in to build on day one (which was) on a Friday. On the second day, we painted the school, and on the third day, we celebrated as we opened the school. On Monday, we were back to school,” he said.

Climate Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

Chilia believes that Pacific Islands like Vanuatu need to be compensated to repair and restore infrastructure lost to the impacts of climate change. He says developed countries responsible for high carbon emissions that have led to global warming should take responsibility for their action and pay up.

“I am calling on all countries of the world to step up on climate justice for the Pacific Islands by supporting (the creation of) a loss and damage facility at this COP27,” Chilia told IPS. He explained that the Vanuatu government should seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice in settling the issue of payments for loss and damage caused by climate change.

Developing countries arguing that they have suffered the impacts of climate change to which they have not contributed are pushing for a loss and damage fund to compensate them for climate impacts.

Espen Ronneberg, Senior Adviser, Multilateral Climate Change Agreements for the Pacific Community (SPC), says loss and damage will continue without ambitious mitigation action and reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. He says the impacts of climate change are already being experienced.

“We are also looking into the future and how those impacts will get much worse unless mitigation is ramped up and unless technical assistance, finance, for instance, are also ramped up,” said Ronneberg, who explained that available resources were not fit-for-purpose in addressing the current impacts of climate change in pacific island countries.

“The type of loss and damage that we are seeing now and that we are anticipating given the different scenarios is not really going to address those impacts. We know there is humanitarian assistance available, there is the Green Fund and the Adaptation Fund, but these do not meet the needs we are seeing,” he said.

“The loss and damage facility is a key to the Pacific Islands, but there are a lot of unknowns at the moment. We know what we do not want. This has to be worked out in common with our development partners, and everyone has to be on the same page regarding loss and damage issues. We are not quite there yet.”

For Chilia, the impact of climate change is real.

“Climate change has hit me personally and has impacted human rights,” Chilia said. “My mother used to be a tourism sales lady, but she is back home because the cyclone destroyed her stall.”

Chilia says he now supports his family.

“I am the breadwinner of the house with seven of us in the family, and I work the one job at the restaurant and bar just to feed the family.”

Chilia could not complete his secondary school after he was forced to drop out when his mother lost her tourism business. His father is unable to work after developing a painful back. He used to take on seasonal jobs picking apples in Australia and New Zealand.

He said coming to COP27 was his first opportunity to travel, but the experience left him enriched. He had learnt so much about climate change and could not wait to tell his village about restoring lost coral reefs.

“I love snorkelling, and when I go snorkelling, I do not see any coloured reefs anymore, but we can do a lot to restore our coral reefs that we are losing because of climate change.”

The Island of Vanuatu relies on coral ecosystems for their economic, livelihood, and coastal protection benefits. A rise in ocean temperatures has led to coral bleaching, while acidification has reduced the availability of calcium minerals in the water that corals need to grow and repair themselves.

“I have a dream – even though my dream has been broken because I did not get to finish my year 10 at school and had to get a job to help my family,” said Chilia. “But I want to bring (the world’s) attention to climate change,” said Chilia, who believes that his activism as a member of Greenpeace Australia Pacific will help make a difference.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Taren Chilia lost his school; his mother lost her job to Cyclone Pam – both are survivors of increasingly intense climate-change-induced weather patterns. At COP27, the Pacific Community voiced its conviction that a loss and damage fund is required to compensate for climate impacts.

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