Africa

Carmen Souza's latest album is inspired by the little-known British influence on the Cape Verde islands.

Nigeria says Niger's accusations are "baseless" and "false".

Mali authorities say there are at least nine survivors from the country.

In a breakthrough, trucks stacked with vital food supplies roll into war-hit Khartoum.

BBC Sport Africa reviews the continent's top moments in 2024, including historic achievements at the Olympics, Paralympics and the Tour de France.

BBC Sport Africa reviews the continent's top moments in 2024, including historic achievements at the Olympics, Paralympics and the Tour de France.

BBC Sport Africa reviews the continent's top moments in 2024, including historic achievements at the Olympics, Paralympics and the Tour de France.

For years repairing watches was a booming business, but a Kaduna horologist now has time on his hands.

For years repairing watches was a booming business, but a Kaduna horologist now has time on his hands.

Mohamed Salah says it "feels different" as Liverpool come from behind to beat Leicester and move seven points clear at the top.

Olympic 200m Letsile Tebogo provided inspiration to help Botswana's Ross Branch win a historic World Rally-Raid Championship title this year.

Olympic 200m Letsile Tebogo provided inspiration to help Botswana's Ross Branch win a historic World Rally-Raid Championship title this year.

A biodiversity hotspot has become the stomping ground of poachers.

A biodiversity hotspot has become the stomping ground of poachers.

Latest scorecard from the first Test between Zimbabwe and Afghanistan in Bulawayo.

The prisoners took advantage of ongoing political unrest triggered by disputed poll results, police say.

The prisoners took advantage of ongoing political unrest triggered by disputed poll results, police say.

12 November 2024, Baku, Azerbaijan. FAO Director-General QU Dongyu and Ismahane Elouafi, EMD of CGIAR attend the inauguration of the Food and Agriculture Pavilion FAO/CGIAR during COP29. Credit: FAO/Alessandra Benedetti

By Aditi Mukherji and Cargele Masso
NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 24 2024 (IPS)

This year has been a landmark one for climate and environment policy. Starting with the UN’s COP16 biodiversity talks in October, followed by the COP29 climate talks in November, and closing with the desertification COP16 in December, few years have offered such critical moments back-to-back.

This created an unprecedented opportunity to bolster food systems against climate change, improve their environmental impacts, and concretize support for smallholder farmers – some of the people most affected by climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.

Across the summits, negotiators broadly agreed on the need to integrate food systems into the UN’s three environmental frameworks, a step in the right direction given the interconnectedness of food and agriculture, and the environment at large. However, to build on the flagship UAE Declaration on food systems at the COP28 climate talks in 2023, the global community must urgently ramp up financing and action to make good on the ambitious goals set.

In other words, the next 12 months to the COP30 climate talks in Brazil are critical for “walking the talk” of the COPs this year. To make the most of the opportunity for food systems to support environmental and climate goals, several steps are needed.

The first is increased investment into low-emissions technologies and innovations for food systems. This includes both investment into new and emerging solutions as well as financing for scaling up existing technologies.

Just as increased investment and support in recent decades led to a solar energy boom, causing the price of solar panels to fall sharply and became cheaper than fossil fuels, food systems need similar long-term and sustained investments. Channelling international finance towards agricultural research and development would accelerate and scale affordable, impactful, and clean technologies that curb emissions and enhance biodiversity while also supporting adaptation and rural livelihoods.

Green ammonia, for instance, is a promising new sector for food and agriculture. It reduces emissions from fertiliser production by utilising renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar power, to fuel the traditional Haber–Bosch process. But at present, green ammonia is more expensive than its fossil fuel-based alternative, and requires more research to achieve cost-effective production in the years to come.

Second, finance is urgently needed to cover the costs and potential short-term losses as farmers adopt low-emission, regenerative agricultural practices. The transition to sustainable agriculture is not without costs, and supporting countries and communities as they make this shift is essential to long-term implementation. For example, payment for ecosystem services, including carbon credits, is worth exploring and implementing.

As it stands, food systems receive only around 0.8 per cent of climate finance, totalling $28.5 billion average yearly. This is far from the estimated $212 billion needed annually to reduce food systems’ environmental footprint, which currently account for one third of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Increased finance in food systems represents a huge opportunity to bring the world back on track to reach climate targets.

The need for finance goes beyond just climate goals. There is also a need for increased finance for biodiversity to fully implement the Global Biodiversity Framework and land degradation neutrality. At the same time, these seemingly competing finance needs can be coordinated to make best use of resources to make progress across the board. Reducing and phasing out harmful subsidies and mobilizing financial resources to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem gains, both targets under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, are paramount to deliver on all three Rio Conventions.

Finally, harmonizing policy can help address this by optimizing the use of resources like finance. Improving policy coherence across climate adaptation and mitigation can help maximize impacts and reduce trade-offs.

For instance, there are currently different country-level policy frameworks to reduce emissions and protect biodiversity: Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). While both acknowledge the interconnectedness between climate and biodiversity, their implementation has been fragmented and siloed. This means we are missing out on the “double-wins”, more often duplicating efforts and even undermining sustainability goals.

Integrating the three Rio Conventions on biodiversity, desertification, and climate is fundamental. Though they are separate frameworks, they cannot operate in siloes, especially regarding food systems, because they are deeply interconnected.

This includes improved coordination to minimize competition for resources like finance and transaction costs, while enhancing systems thinking.

Food systems offer an opportunity for just and fair climate action, simultaneously vulnerable and powerful when it comes to the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation. Given that next year will be a single-COP year, attention must return to the opportunities for food systems to reduce emissions and enhance biodiversity and ecosystem gains, at the same time as supporting a just transition to ensure we sustain not only the planet, but all humanity too.

Aditi Mukherji, CGIAR’s Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Action Platform and IPCC author

Cargele Masso, Director of the CGIAR Impact Platform on Environmental Health and Biodiversity

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

By Andrew Firmin and Inés M. Pousadela
LONDON / MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Dec 24 2024 (IPS)

It’s been a tumultuous year, and a tough one for struggles for human rights. Civil society’s work to seek social justice and hold the powerful to account has been tested at every turn. Civil society has kept holding the line, resisting power grabs and regressive legislation, calling out injustice and claiming some victories, often at great cost. And things aren’t about to get any easier, as key challenges identified in 2024 are likely to intensify in 2025.

Andrew Firmin

1. More people are likely to be exposed to conflict and its consequences, including humanitarian and human rights disasters, mass displacement and long-term trauma. The message of 2024 is largely one of impunity: perpetrators of conflict, including in Israel and Russia, will be confident they can resist international pressure and escape accountability. While there may be some kind of ceasefire in Gaza or halt to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, those responsible for large-scale atrocities are unlikely to face justice. Impunity is also likely to prevail in the conflicts taking place largely off the global radar, including in Myanmar and Sudan. There will also be growing concern about the use of AI and automated weapons in warfare, a troublingly under-regulated area.

As recent events in Lebanon and Syria have shown, changing dynamics, including shifting calculations made by countries such as Iran, Israel, Russia, Turkey and the USA, mean that frozen conflicts could reignite and new ones could erupt. As in Syria, these shifts could create sudden moments of opportunity; the international community and civil society must respond quickly when these come.

Inés M. Pousadela

2. The second Trump administration will have a global impact on many current challenges. It’s likely to reduce pressure on Israel, hamper the response to the climate crisis, put more strain on already flawed and struggling global governance institutions and embolden right-wing populists and nationalists the world over. These will bring negative consequences for civic space – the space for civil society, which depends on the freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly. Funding for civil society is also likely to be drastically reduced as a result of the new administration’s shifting priorities.

3. 2025 is the year that states are required to develop new plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change under the Paris Agreement. The process will culminate in the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, likely the world’s last chance to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels. This will only happen if states stand up to fossil fuel companies and look beyond narrow short-term interests. Failing that, more of the debate may come to focus on adaptation. The unresolved question of who will pay for climate transition will remain central. Meanwhile, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods can be expected to continue to devastate communities, impose high economic costs, drive migration and exacerbate conflicts.

4. Globally, economic dysfunction is likely to increase, with more people struggling to afford basic necessities, increasingly including housing, as prices continue to rise, with climate change and conflict among the causes. The gap between the struggling many and the ultra-wealthy few will become more visible, and anger at rising prices or taxes will drive people – particularly young people deprived of opportunities – onto the streets. State repression will often follow. Frustration with the status quo means people will keep looking for political alternatives, a situation right-wing populists and nationalists will keep exploiting. But demands for labour rights, particularly among younger workers, will also likely increase, along with pressure for policies such as wealth taxes, a universal basic income and a shorter working week.

5. A year when the largest number of people ever went to the polls has ended – but there are still plenty of elections to come. Where elections are free and fair, voters are likely to keep rejecting incumbents, particularly due to economic hardship. Right-wing populists and nationalists are likely to benefit the most, but the tide will eventually turn: once they’ve been around long enough to be perceived as part of the political establishment, they too will see their positions threatened, and they can be expected to respond with authoritarianism, repression and the scapegoating of excluded groups. More politically manipulated misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and anti-migrant rhetoric can be expected as a result.

6. Even if developments in generative AI slow as the current model reaches the limits of the human-generated material it feeds on, international regulation and data protection will likely continue to lag behind. The use of AI-enabled surveillance, such as facial recognition, against activists is likely to increase and become more normalised. The challenge of disinformation is likely to intensify, particularly around conflicts and elections.

Several tech leaders have actively taken the side of right-wing populists and authoritarians, putting their platforms and wealth at the service of their political ambitions. Emerging alternative social media platforms offer some promise but are likely to face similar problems as they grow.

7. Climate change, conflict, economic strife, repression of LGBTQI+ identities and civil and political repression will continue to drive displacement and migration. Most migrants will remain in difficult and underfunded conditions in global south countries. In the global north, right-wing shifts are expected to drive more restrictive and repressive policies, including the deportation of migrants to countries where they may be at risk. Attacks on civil society working to defend their rights, including by assisting at sea and land borders, are also likely to intensify.

8. The backlash against women’s and LGBTQI+ rights will continue. The US right wing will continue to fund anti-rights movements in the global south, notably in Commonwealth African countries, while European conservative groups will continue to export their anti-rights campaigns, as some Spanish organisations have long done throughout Latin America. Disinformation efforts from multiple sources, including Russian state media, will continue to influence public opinion. This will leave civil society largely on the defensive, focused on consolidating gains and preventing setbacks.

9. As a result of these trends, the ability of civil society organisations and activists to operate freely will remain under pressure in the majority of countries. Just when its work is most needed, civil society will face growing restrictions on fundamental civic freedoms, including in the form of anti-NGO laws and laws that label civil society as agents of foreign powers, the criminalisation of protests and increasing threats to the safety of activists and journalists. Civil society will have to devote more of its resources to protecting its space, at the expense of the resources available to promote and advance rights.

10. Despite these many challenges, civil society will continue to strive on all fronts. It will continue to combine advocacy, protests, online campaigns, strategic litigation and international diplomacy. As awareness grows of the interconnected and transnational nature of the challenges, it will emphasise solidarity actions that transcend national boundaries and make connections between different struggles in different contexts.

Even in difficult circumstances, civil society achieved some notable victories in 2024. In the Czech Republic, civil society’s efforts led to a landmark reform of rape laws, and in Poland they resulted in a law making emergency contraception available without prescription, overturning previous restrictive legislation. After extensive civil society advocacy, Thailand led the way in Southeast Asia by passing a marriage equality law, while Greece became the first predominantly Christian Orthodox country to legalise same-sex marriage

People defended democracy. In South Korea, people took to the streets in large numbers to resist martial law, while in Bangladesh, protest action led to the ousting of a longstanding authoritarian government. In Guatemala, a president committed to fighting corruption was sworn in after civil society organised mass protests to demand that powerful elites respect the election results, and in Venezuela, hundreds of thousands organised to defend the integrity of the election, defeated the authoritarian government in the polls and took to the streets in the face of severe repression when the results weren’t recognised. In Senegal, civil society mobilised to prevent an attempt to postpone an election that resulted in an opposition win.

Civil society won victories in climate and environmental litigation – including in Ecuador, India and Switzerland – to force governments to recognise the human rights impacts of climate change and do more to reduce emissions and curb pollution. Civil society also took to the courts to pressure governments to stop arms sales to Israel, with a successful verdict in the Netherlands and others pending.

In 2025, the struggle continues. Civil society will keep carrying the torch of hope that a more peaceful, just, equal and sustainable world is possible. This idea will remain as important as the tangible impact we’ll continue to achieve despite the difficult circumstances.

Andrew Firmin is Editor-in-Chief and Inés M. Pousadela is Senior Research Specialist at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. The two are co-directors and writers for CIVICUS Lens and co-authors of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Famine has spread to five areas in the war-hit country, a UN-backed group says.