Africa

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, May 25 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on April 1 2021

Two elephants cross a stream in Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. Thanks to a number of conservation projects run by various government agencies, non-government organisations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and several other big game animals, including bison and tigers. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

HYDERABAD, India, Apr 1 2021 (IPS) – As the sun sets over the canopy of Albizia amara trees, a thin blanket of fog begins to descend over the forests of the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, which lies roughly 150 km south of the Indian city of Bangalore.

Not so long ago, plumes of smoke would rise from the hamlets dotting the forests as women busily cooked dinner for their families over wood stoves. But tonight, dinner will be a smokeless affair in dozens of villages as communities have opted for the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a clean burning fuel that has given a boost to the health and safety of both the forest and its people thanks to a unique conservation project.

Spread over an area of 906 sq. km – slightly bigger than the German capital Berlin — and nestled along the border of two states, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in southern India, Malai Mahadeshwara Hills (MM Hills) was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2013.

An estimated 2,000 elephants and 150 people, mostly police and security officers, had been killed here in the past because of rampant poaching by an infamous bandit.

But thanks to a number of conservation projects run by various government agencies, non-government organisations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and several other big game animals, including bison and tigers.

Besides animals, the forest landscape also includes over 50 villages of indigenous peoples. And in a dramatic shift towards sustainability, thousands of forest dwellers have moved to a forest-friendly fuel to save the habitat of these wild animals thanks to a project spearheaded by Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), a local NGO, in partnership with IUCN.

Conserving the natural habitat of elephants

Funded under IUCN’s Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme (ITHCP), the project aims to minimise human-wildlife conflict and promote a sustainable living among the forest peoples.

Dr.Sanjay Gubbi, Senior Scientist at NCF, describes the early years when his team first began work in MM Hills.

Almost every village community in MM Hills practices farming, but they were also dependent on forest resources, including using firewood for fuel.

And the destruction of one particular tree, the Albizia amara — also called the Oilcake Tree in many parts of the world — was of significance to the wildlife population.

“We conducted a survey and found that 53 percent of the firewood used by the community came from the Albizia amara tree. Elephants feed on the barks of these trees, so because of the firewood consumption, elephants were directly affected. So, we decided to begin by addressing this firewood problem, especially along the elephant corridors (forest patches used by elephants to move from one part of the forest to another),” Gubbi tells IPS.

Forest women receive LPG stove and cylinder in the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. In a dramatic shift towards sustainability, thousands of forest dwellers have moved to a forest-friendly fuel to save the habitat of the sanctuary’s wild animals thanks to a project spearheaded by Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and IUCN. Courtesy: Sanjay Gubbi/NCF

A solution with numerous benefits

The team focused on introducing an alternative fuel source that would be non-polluting, accessible and affordable to the community. Moreover, it had to be something that would help the forest dwellers adopt a more sustainable way of living — one of the core conservation principles practiced by IUCN.

NCF provided each family with a free LPG subscription, which came with a stove, a cylinder and accessories, and cost about 5,300 rupees ($71). In addition, they trained the community to use the stove and connected them with a nearby LPG distributor, so they could re-fill their gas supply independently.

Changing the community’s source of fuel wasn’t easy. The villagers, most of whom had never seen an LPG stove before, were scared of taking one home. Their worries ranged from beliefs that food cooked over a gas stove could cause gastric pain, to the fear that the cylinders would burst and kill them. Every day, NCF field workers travelled to the villages, facing volleys of questions from the community.

And so the team came up with a unique solution to tackle the twin challenges of breaking the taboo and convincing the villagers to embrace LPG: producing a short film in which all the actors were from the community itself.

The 16-minute film answers the questions of community members, allays their fear and informs them about the use of LPG. The film also explains the co-benefits of using LPG instead of firewood; women will spend less time searching for and collecting firewood, leaving them with more time to do other things, improved lung health and reducing their risks of facing elephants while collecting wood.

“The film was a big hit and a great communication tool,” Gubbi tells IPS.

One of the villages where a large number of people have switched to using LPG is Lokkanahalli. The village is of geographical significance as it is located along the Doddasampige-Yediyaralli corridor, one of the paths the elephants take to Biligirirangana Ranganathaswamy Hills, an adjacent wildlife sanctuary.

“I was scared (at first) of using LPG because it might be harmful for our health. I also thought that it would mean an extra cost for our family (to refill the LPG cylinder) and we might not be able to afford it,” 28-year-old Pushpa Vadanagahalli, one of the women from Lokanahalli village, tells IPS.

The refill costs about $8.

“But after I received the first cylinder and cooked with it, I realised there was nothing to be afraid of. Actually, I feel it’s much safer than going to the forest daily and collecting firewood, so we don’t mind spending on the refill,” Vadanagahalli says.

Forty-year-old Seethamma had been braving elephants and other animals in the forest for several years as she collected firewood.

“Cutting trees and carrying them home is not easy, I used to get back pain. We also must watch out for big animals, especially elephants. It would also take so much time every day. Now, I no longer have to do that, so I am very relieved,” she tells IPS of her choice to switch to LPG.

A case study for a global discussion on managing landscapes for nature and people

According to Gubbi, over the past four years nearly two thousand families from 44 villages in MM Hills and its adjoining forest Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary have given up using firewood as a source of fuel.

Consumption of firewood has reduced by 65 percent among these villagers.

However, the community still continues to use firewood to heat water, but for this they collect agricultural residue or dry, dead branches and twigs that have fallen onto the forest floor. We now need to address the issue of providing an alternative for heating water.

It is a harmonious managing of the landscape for both nature and the people who live there. This is in fact one of the themes of theIUCN World Conservation Congress, which will be held from Sept. 3 to 11 in Marseille. The Congress will be a milestone event for conservation, providing a platform for conservation experts and custodians, government and business, indigenous peoples, scientists, and other stakeholders.

The success of the MM Hills and Cauvery project proves that a balance between “ecological integrity for natural landscapes, a shared prosperity, and justice for custodians on working landscapes within the limits that nature can sustain” — one of the discussion points for the Congress — is possible.

Understanding how to “deliver climate-resilient and economically-viable development, while at the same time conserving nature and recognising its rights” is one of the questions around the theme ‘managing landscapes for nature and people’ that will be discussed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

From Poaching to Protection

Another question is how to heed the voices of environmental custodians, especially those that are often marginalised such as indigenous peoples and women.

Perhaps the MM Hills project provides an answer to this. NCF has found a unique way to include the indigenous people of the area in their conservation efforts. And they have found that women are overwhelmingly taking the lead in these efforts.

With each LPG subscription provided by NCF, a written commitment to agree not to cut or destroy wild trees and to not engage in illegal hunting activities is required. The signatories are part of the community committee – a community-based group focused on the conservation and protection of the forest. Currently, 27 villages have a forest protection group, comprising over 80 percent of women.

Towards a sustainable future

The conservation efforts in MM Hills and Cauvery continue. Seven years after it became a protected forest, MM Hills is now home to 12 to 15 tigers and will soon become a tiger reserve. Early this year, the government of Karnataka and the federal government gave their approval and a formal announcement is expected to be made soon.

The formal status of a tiger reserve is expected to bring more funding, which could further help mitigate the human-wildlife conflict and help convert communities there to a more sustainable way of life.

 

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By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, May 25 2021 (IPS)

In 2016, when Bosnian-American professional basketball player, Indira Kaljo got in touch with Asma Elbadawi because she had been forced to give up playing basketball after she started wearing the hijab, they decided to take it up with the International Federation of Basketball (FIBA), the sports governing body to change its rules on headgear.

Asma Elbadawi

Most sports federations around the world don’t specify or ban Hijab, but the usage of general language in which ‘headgear’ is banned, means women who wear Hijab, or men or women who wear turbans or other religious gears cannot participate in those sports. However the challenge was not just to overturn the rule, but also counter the belief what Muslim women can or can’t do, which includes playing ‘Basketball’.

Asma became one of the leading voices in the fight to get FIBA to permanently lift the ban on headgears to allow players in turbans, hijabs and other religious headwear to play basketball at all levels. It took four years to finally win the #FIBAAllowHijabCampaign and to overturn the rule.

“That moment when I realized we won the campaign, I was so excited about the girls who would now get that opportunity to play,” says Asma Elbadawi to me in an interview. “Sometimes I think about it and I can’t believe it happened, because in my mind I am a little person, one voice, but we all built our voices together and became so loud that we changed history.”

The impact of this campaign also helped normalize and, for many, introduced covered Muslim women into sports, challenging the stereotype narrative of ‘suppressed Muslim women in a hijab.’

“There were so many people from outside the community who did not understand what it meant for a Muslim woman to maintain her modesty, and if that meant choosing to wear the Hijab, they kept saying why don’t you take it off,” says Asma.

When it comes to sports, it took women a long battle to be able to participate in competitive events, and they still undergo the humiliating practice of sex-testing to make sure they are not men trying to cheat the system – biologically or literally. There was a time when women were not permitted to watch the Olympic games, which were founded in 1894, reserved just for male athletes. It was only in 1900, women were admitted as participants in sports, “that were considered to be compatible with their femininity and fragility, but excluded from the showpiece events of track and field”. It took another 28 years for women to compete for athletics medals, which included, the 100m, the 4x100m relay, the high jump, the discus and the 800m. The latter being an occasion marred by ‘fake news’.

It is not often we see women in male-dominated sports, and even less so for Muslim women, who already have to defy stereotypes, jump multiple social, religious and break personal barriers to be able to be where they are.

“When you deny a whole demographic of people the ability to join in, you are losing out on talent, and most of the time, that talent can add so much to the space and the environment,” says Asma.

It is important for sport federations as institutions to create a more inclusive environment with bigger female representations. How women are portrayed in the press matter, and the media must be held accountable for its unconscious biases and gender markings.

“She’s the female Usain Bolt,” such statements intend to flatter women, “but are actually another way that men’s sport is presented as the standard against which women’s sport should be judged”. Sexualization of female athletes, compulsory heterosexuality and appropriate femininity focused on the athletes bodies rather than athletic abilities are all barriers that are preventing women from performing at the highest level. “Many female athletes are only accepted by the society and receive coverage in the media, if they participate in traditionally feminine sports. If a woman dares to participate in a masculine sport, their sexuality is immediately questioned,” highlights this report.

Multiple athletics retailers have been pulled up for their treatment of women or people of colour in the workplace. Nike, a brand which identified women as one of “four epic growth opportunities” faced criticism for its treatment of female atheltes during pregnancy, in addition to a class action lawsuit alleging sex discremination. At Adidas, Black employees formed a coalition to pressure top management for change against systemic racism. Both the retailers released their list of company actions, acknowledging to put a stop to racism.

Sport is meant to be one of the most important socio-cultural learning experiences. Girls and women who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem, lower levels of depression, and more positive body image. Playing a sport is where you traditionally learn about teamwork, goal setting, pursuit of excellence in performance and other achievement-oriented behaviours – critical skills necessary for success in the workplace. However the written and unwritten rules in the sports industry such as ban on headgear, are arguably discriminating against female athletes, and that’s why voices like Asma are needed when women’s sports are de-emphasized.

“You do feel you are representing more than just yourself when you wear the hijab, especially when you are going into communities where they have never seen women wearing hijab. You want to show your best self because you want them to feel like these girls are doing something amazing, and everything we hear in the media is not true about their community,” says Asma.

The challenge is not just from the sport providers, the industry and its management, but also to change the attitude of women and girls towards sports and activities in order to increase participation. The barriers to participation faced by Muslim women are not different from those faced by women from other ethnicity and different cultural backgrounds. Safety and security are important to prevent racially or gender motivated incidents. Cultural sensitivity is definitely an enabling tact, but it is also important to promote positive images, have more diverse role models, stories of success and empowerment, along with simply letting a woman to just be an athlete, without stereotypes, without othering and patronization towards what she can or can’t do. As Asma says, “representation is important because it allows young girls to see women they can relate to in fields they aspire to be in. It gives them hope that they can also achieve those things.”

These would be key to developing long term attitudinal change and increasing participation levels of girls and women in sports – which no longer is or should be defined just by the ‘male gaze’.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views.

 

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Ntchisi District Hospital, Malawi, April 2021. Credit: WaterAid/Wimbledon Foundation/Dennis Lupenga

By Dennis Lupenga*
LILONGWE, Malawi, May 25 2021 (IPS)

Malawian healthcare workers are facing challenges from all sides. More than half of healthcare facilities in Malawi are without handwashing facilities, almost two thirds have no decent toilets and almost one fifth do not have clean water on site.

With cases of Covid-19 in the country continuing throughout the year, staff are working through the pandemic without a basic first line of defence against infection.

For midwives and those involved in maternity care, this absence is frightening. Without water, toilets and soap, health centres, the very places which are supposed to keep mums and babies well, become breeding grounds for the rapid spread of infectious diseases.

Globally, one million mothers and new-born babies die from infections soon after birth each year. This is a tragedy that could easily be prevented with something so simple – soap and water.

In the run up to this year’s three-day World Health Assembly, which is scheduled to end May 26 in Geneva, WaterAid spoke to health workers, patients and families in about the challenges of keeping mums and babies safe in this environment.

Ntchisi is a rural district in the central region of Malawi. There are four health care centres: Ntchisi District Hospital as well as Kangolwa, Mkunzi and Khuwi health centres.

None have adequate water, sanitation or hygiene facilities. Mothers and babies are at risk of catching and spreading infectious diseases – and staff are struggling to keep the environment clean.

WaterAid and the Wimbledon Foundation are working together to bring clean water, decent sanitation and good hygiene to these four healthcare facilities in the Ntchisi District – a change which will impact 300,000 people.

But there are almost 2 billion people being put at risk every day across the world, because they go to work or seek care at a hospital or clinic without these fundamental services.

Chrissy, a health attendant at Khuwi Health Centre, has to collect water four times a day from community boreholes, 300m away from the health centre. The boreholes are crowded, and she has to either spend time queueing, or fight her way to the front of the line, explaining that it is for the health centre.

She worries that when she leaves the hospital to do this, she is leaving her colleague (one nurse midwife) alone to look after a number of mothers and babies. This means that some are left on their own, and at times when both the baby and the mother require urgent care, one or the other loses out. On any maternity ward, any moment can be critical.

Chrissy, a health attendant at Khuwi Health Centre, Malawi, April 2021. Credit: WaterAid/Wimbledon Foundation/Dennis Lupenga

She said: “The time we leave the hospital to fetch water can literally mean the difference between life or death for women and babies.”

Even though the health centre staff know how important handwashing is as a first line of defence against Covid-19 and other infectious diseases, there simply isn’t enough water to make this happen, or to keep the surfaces clean in the hospital.

Chrissy said: “…during this time of COVID-19, we have been trying our best to make sure that water is available for people to wash their hands before getting any medical attention, but we just can’t keep up with the huge number of people. It is important to keep the surfaces of the hospital clean so that we don’t become a conduit of spreading the virus.”

Khuwi Health Centre attracts a lot of people due to its location, alongside the main tarmac road to Ntchisi District. But the centre bears the scars of somewhere that has, for a long time, struggled with water, hygiene and sanitation issues.

In the maternity ward, women who have no other way to clean themselves once they have delivered a baby have resorted to cutting away pieces of the mattresses (there are only two) and using these pieces as sanitary pads.

Kangolwa Health Centre’s busy labour ward, not far from Khuwi, delivers 40-60 babies every month. Unfortunately, there is only one working toilet for the entire labour ward and this is often blocked. Only one woman can wash in the bathroom each day as it fills up with water and blood.

Some mothers are asked to walk to the other side of the health centre to use a shared bathroom for relatives who are caring for patients at the hospital. This bathroom is often blocked too.

Steria, community midwife at Kangolwa Health Centre says: “Imagine asking a woman who has just given birth to walk all the way to the other side of this facility with blood dripping all the way. “It is heart-breaking, but we just don’t have any other options.”

Loveness’s one day old grandson was born at another healthcare centre in the region. To help her daughter recover, Loveness wants to prepare food and drinking water for her at the health centre’s kitchen but without clean water nearby, this is difficult.

She said: “For the past three days, we have had challenges accessing water. Especially here at the kitchen, there is no running water. “Imagine having to walk several times in a day to fetch water not just for drinking, cleaning plates, pots and others eating utensils not forgetting water for bathing and cooking for both myself and my daughter, but also fetching water for everyone who is here at the hospital.It is not easy.”

One in three healthcare facilities globally do not have readily available access to handwashing facilities and almost half of healthcare facilities in the world’s poorest countries have no clean water. Without these bare essentials, new-born babies are needlessly at risk from infections and diseases.

Community midwife technician Eunice is adamant that hospitals without running water and decent hygiene pose a threat to public health: “We need thorough handwashing in our line of duty. With no water, we can’t wash our hands. We are at great risk as health workers, not forgetting the patients we have to attend to. “Instead of patients getting help from this clinic, they are getting infections. Simply because we have no running water. “Water is life. Without it, we are doomed.”

Data shows that globally, a staggering 1.8 billion people are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and other diseases, simply because they use or work in a healthcare facility which lacks basic water services. In the twenty first century this simply shouldn’t be and needn’t be the case.

Last December the WHO estimated that to bring clean water, handwashing facilities and decent toilets to the health care centres in the poorest countries would cost just $3.6billion – which equates to around an hour and a half’s worth of what the whole world spent in a year on the Covid-19 response.

It’s time to make this investment.

*Dennis Lupenga is Voices from the Field Officer at WaterAid, based in Lilongwe, Malawi.

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, May 25 2021 (IPS)

Failure to sufficiently accelerate comprehensive efforts to contain COVID-19 contagion has greatly worsened the catastrophe in developing countries. Grossly inadequate financing of relief, recovery and reform efforts has also further set back progress, including sustainable development.

Anis Chowdhury

Uncertain and unequal recovery
After over a year, “Poor countries are facing severe setbacks on their development paths, encumbered by ballooning debts, high risks of default and limited ability to inject desperately needed liquidity”, observed participants at a recent UN Forum.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist, Gita Gopinath, estimates US$9 trillion in economic benefits from adequately accelerating affordable mass vaccination, testing, tracing and treatment at a cost of US$50bn.

Overall global projections obscure disparities among and within countries. With vaccine apartheid and developing countries’ constraints, uneven pandemic containment and recovery have been worsening prior inequalities, further setting back poor countries and people.

Global disparities
Government responses have been much constrained by macroeconomic policy space, especially access to finance. ‘Unconventional’ monetary policies since the 2008 global financial crisis, especially low interest rates, have helped.

Thus, high-income countries (HICs) have borrowed and spent much more on relief and recovery. While rich countries have been able to borrow and spend massively, developing countries have very limited fiscal space due to diminished borrowing capacity.

Often with poorer credit histories and ratings, developing countries generally face much higher interest rates on foreign borrowing. Their foreign debt burdens as shares of national income were already relatively higher before the pandemic. All these have constrained them from adopting bolder expansionary efforts.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Unsurprisingly, developed countries have accounted for nearly 80% of all fiscal efforts. Compared to 16% of their national incomes, least developed countries have only increased government expenditure by 2.6% on average. Facing financing constraints, many low-income countries (LICs) have even cut spending!

Insufficient international support
Total resource flows to developing countries have fallen as official development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct investment (FDI) have declined. FDI in developing economies fell by 12% in 2020: by 37% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 18% in Africa and 4% in Asia.

While donors cut bilateral aid commitments by 36% in 2020, net ODA from 13 OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) rich member countries declined by US$4.7bn – led by a 10% UK cut – as “DAC donors prioritized their national responses towards COVID at the expense of international aid”.

International support for developing countries at this time of great need has been woefully inadequate. Despite acknowledging that “Debt service suspension is a powerful, fast acting measure that can bring real benefits to people in poor countries”, the World Bank has refused debt service cancellations.

The Bank claims these would adversely impact its credit rating, reducing its ability to borrow at low preferential rates for lending to middle-income countries (MICs) and to LICs on concessional terms. Unsurprisingly, debt cancellation has not been envisaged by the Bank.

From April 2020, the IMF’s Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust has provided debt service relief of about US$500m, or 0.2% of GDP for 28 highly indebted LICs, its poorest and most vulnerable members. This relief has been extended twice – for half a year each time – to cover all eligible debt service payments due to the Fund estimated at US$238 million in the latest round.

The G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) is even worse, merely delaying repayments. Interest continues to accumulate to be repaid later. Despite two extensions, borrowing countries’ lack of enthusiasm for DSSI is hardly surprising. As private creditors have not joined, DSSI only covered 2% of total debt service payments due in 2020.

Leveraging the new SDRs
With Biden administration support, US$650bn in new IMF special drawing rights (SDRs) should be approved by August. But this is barely half of the trillion in SDRs (worth US$1.37tn) that The Financial Times deemed necessary.

SDR allocations are proportionate to countries’ shareholdings and voting rights, mainly benefiting developed, especially European countries. Allocations for the Group of Seven (G7) largest developed economies amount to US$272bn, with Africa getting only US$33.6bn! Nonetheless, the new SDRs should provide some welcome relief for many countries.

Developed countries which do not need to use their new SDRs should transfer their new allocations to the 15 ‘eligible’ multilateral financial institutions, including the IMF, World Bank and regional development banks. These should be used to expand their lending to developing countries on preferential terms.

Calling for massive multilateral development bank recapitalization for a ten-fold increase in official funding for poor countries, Jeffrey Sachs has called for much more official financing, by ‘recycling’ at least US$100bn of HIC SDRs.

Financing options for developing countries
Most developing country governments were already heavily indebted to varying degrees before the pandemic. Much greater debt forbearance is urgently needed as well as longer-term development financing are also needed.

While MICs may have more borrowing options, enabling them to minimise the burden of past government debt, domestic or foreign, is urgent. Already, the financial community and media frequently warn that their credit ratings will be adversely affected if they borrow more.

World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart – once reputed for her aversion to high indebtedness – now urges countries to borrow to fight the economic impact of the pandemic. She has rightly opposed putting “resources into zombie loans”.

Increasing non-performing loans and financial fragility to enable unviable firms to survive would slow recovery efforts. Instead, Reinhart has stressed the need to “expediently restructure and write down bad debts”.

However, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to financing needed measures to contain the pandemic and for macroeconomic expansion. Meanwhile, poor countries’ financing conditions are worsening as the pandemic drags on much longer than expected.

Facing economic slowdown, most governments need to spend much more domestically to prevent temporary recessions becoming depressions. Developing countries should not incur foreign debt except on preferential terms as necessary to import essentials such as medicines and food.

International cooperation must ensure significantly more official foreign exchange financing to supplement innovative domestic financing for urgently needed spending for relief, recovery and reform.

 

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By External Source
QUITO, May 24 2021 (IPS)

Latin America has lots of natural advantages for the coming energy transition. It already has the greenest power matrix in the world. While having the planet’s largest reserves of copper make it a key provider for international electrification programmes.

Yet transport is its Achilles heel. Just 1% of Latin American transport is fuelled by clean energy. So, while more than half of its electricity comes for renewable sources, once you factor in the heavy dependence on oil and gas for moving people and goods around the region, then the renewable share of its primary energy is just 5%.

Latin America will only make significant progress in its energy transition when it manages to fuel more transport with renewable energy. One solution will be electric vehicles (EVs). However, as mining experts reveal elsewhere in this report, copper supply will be unable to replace every existing internal combustion engine with an EV by 2050.

The energy transition is such an ambitious target that countries will have to use all of the tools at their disposal. Latin America’s natural endowment mean that it can increase its biofuel production exponentially, without harming the environment or food supplies

That’s even more true for aviation, where electric planes are nowhere near ready for commercial passenger flights. That means biofuels will also play an important role. Latin America is already the world’s largest biofuel producer and, more importantly, it has ample room to increase production. A UN report found that thanks to abundant freshwater and vast stretches of unused farmland, Latin America’s has 42% of the world’s potential increase in agricultural production.

 

2nd Generation

When Brazil’s largest biofuel producer, ECB Group, starts operations in Paraguay it will cement Latin America’s leading position in the industry. That’s because the Paraguayan project, Omega Green, is Latin America’s first ever second-generation biorefinery.

Omega Green, which opens in 2024, will produce HVO, a type of biodiesel, and SPK, a bio aviation fuel. European oil majors, Shell and BP, have already signed offtake contracts for 90% of production, underscoring the demand for low carbon solutions to the transport problem.

BP has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050 and recognises that biofuels can help it get there. Countries with ambitious environmental targets, such as the UK, will eventually make the same decision. And it’s the technological advantages of second-generation biofuel – from its feedstock to its uses – that will help convince them.

By using an energy-intensive process of applying hydrogen to organic matter, second-generation biofuels can produce a wider range of fuels. For example, aviation fuel that allows biofuels cut emissions that electrification simply can’t reach.

Second-generation biodiesel also has more uses than its predecessor, as it is a ‘drop in’ fuel that can be placed in existing internal combustion engines and work without any modifications. Indeed, you could power your car will 100% HVO or mix any percentage with your usual diesel.

That flexibility – in both feedstock and use – makes biofuel an essential part of the fight against climate change, says Erasmo Battistella, CEO of ECB Group. “Biofuel has many advantages over electric vehicles. Take London for example, with HVO you could replace the dirty diesel fuel, with its polluting emissions, overnight. You don’t need to build new infrastructure, or buy costly new busses, you just put our fuel straight in.”

You would expect a biofuel producer to talk up the benefits of his product, but his assessment is confirmed by the experiences of one of Latin America’s leading proponents of electrification, Irene Cañas, President of the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity.

Cañas, who oversees the most renewable electricity system in the world, plans to replace Costa Rica’s existing fleet of diesel buses with electric buses. “It will begin with a pilot scheme, using three electric buses donated by Germany. That will begin this year, as we test the buses on different routes to evaluate their performance.

The scheme has been delayed by the pandemic because the health restrictions mean that buses can only carry half the passengers, which has cut the revenues for bus companies and made them less willing to invest in electric vehicles.” With proven biodiesel there is no need for performance tests. But more importantly, it doesn’t require costly equipment swaps.

Second-generation biofuel’s feedstock flexibility is another big plus. One of the biggest biofuel criticisms is that it reduces farming for food production. Yet with these new biofuels it’s not true, says Battistella. “The beauty of second-generation biofuels is that they can use such a wide range of feedstocks.

We are keen to develop a diverse supply of different crops. And that’s why biofuels will be a success around the world. Whether it is palm in Indonesia or canola in Canada – biofuels can always be made with local plants.

And by planting more crops we actually increase the food supply. Because the best parts can be used for food and whatever is left as feedstock for biofuel […] it can also come from animal waste, rubbish or agricultural by-products.”

 

Environmental impact

Another supposed flaw with Latin American biofuel is that it will deforest parts of the Amazon. Yet Alfredo Mordezki, manager of the Santander Latin America Investment Grade ESG Bond Fund, says the Amazon is so sensitive that firms who damage it will have restricted access to international capital markets.

“Some may think of Brazil as this terrible polluter that is deforesting the Amazon, but within the country there are many companies with great environmental practises. Take Brazil’s pulp and paper companies. People assume that they are linked to deforestation but actually they are keen to distance themselves from the Amazon because they know how damaging that can be to their reputation.

As a result, most of these companies are making efforts to be more transparent, disclose more information and have ambitious plans to become greener. A lot of the worst environmental damage is committed by illegal groups in Latin America, for example with informal mining. But if we can funnel money to the best listed companies then it should drive change.

A Brazilian soy producer that recently issued bonds has independently certified that all of its land, and that of any suppliers, is not coming from a deforested part of the Amazon. That has raised the bar for any further soy companies looking for investment.”

That assessment is backed up by Battistella. “For us to sign the agreements with BP and Shell we had to certify the environmental impact of everything from planting the raw material to how the final product would be consumed.” That’s why “our pongamia is being produced in the vast, barren Chaco region of Paraguay. This is not land that has been deforested for our production, but farming land that we are reforesting for our project.”

Indeed, Omega Green has already announced that one-third of its feedstock will be coming from Pongamia, a tree that doesn’t require fertilizer, lives for 100 years and has a low carbon density. “The fuel you produce actually has a negative carbon density score. Imagine that – you are supplying airlines with a fuel that actually sequesters more CO2 than it produces.”

Indeed, Battistella feels that biofuel is subject to far more environmental scrutiny than EVs. “The supply chains for a lot of the metals used in electric cars are not very clean, with child labour involved in mining some of the metals. The process for making batteries can also have a harmful environmental impact.”

 

Market niche

The final criticism of biofuel is that it doesn’t produce enough output to make a significant impact on climate change. Battistella says the numbers from Omega Green prove otherwise. “Pongamia is so productive that just 120,000 hectares will produce enough feedstock for 1/3rd of our needs.

With 400,000 hectares it could cover our entire production. That might sound like a lot of land to someone in London but the Chaco region has 24 million hectares.” Again, his words are backed up by the fact that BP and Shell are using biofuel to reach their ambitious carbon neutral targets. Moreover, the success of Omega Green can be replicated throughout the region, says Battistella.

“Even though Brazil is the leader in Latin American biofuels, we also see widespread consumption and production elsewhere in the region. Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Peru are all using and making biodiesel and ethanol. Latin America could increase biofuel production tenfold just by applying new technology and planting more feedstock.”

However, it is true that biofuel won’t be able to replace oil on its own. Current global oil demand is around 100 million barrels per day, while Omega Green’s total production will be 20,000 bpd. Even if you build 1,000 Omega Greens, you would only cover a fifth of oil demand. So, the transition will require a combination of EVs and biofuel. Many investors think of them as mutually exclusive, when in fact they are complementary.

“Look back around 150 years to the last energy transition, when oil began to replace coal. Even though oil became dominant coal is still being used today. We will see something similar with this energy transition – oil will still be used for the next 70 or 100 years. And that’s OK because to limit the impact of climate change, we don’t need to replace 100% of oil, we just need to reduce CO2 to historical levels.

Oil is built-in to a lot of the technology we use so it’s impossible for us to ignore it completely. Moreover, rising energy demand means that we will need it. For example, cargo volumes are expected to triple between now and 2050.

But we need to be intelligent and use biofuels to the best effect. One example is aviation, where electric planes are not viable at the moment and hydrogen is too dangerous to carry people. Another is the city centres where people are forced to breathe in poor quality air, that is like smoking a cigarette each day.”

Biofuel’s advantages in cities make it a perfect solution for Latin America, which is the most urbanised region in the planet. Moreover, biofuel doesn’t just replace oil in the petrol stations. By-products, such as bio naphtha, can be used as feedstocks to make green plastic.

Ultimately the energy transition is such an ambitious target that countries will have to use all of the tools at their disposal. Latin America’s natural endowment mean that it can increase its biofuel production exponentially, without harming the environment or food supplies.

Meanwhile, biofuel’s competitive advantages are well-suited to the region’s needs. Omega Green may be the first second-generation biofuels plant in Latin America but it won’t be the last. It is paving the way for a biofuel boom that will help clean the region’s transport sector.

This story was originally published by LatAm INVESTOR

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, May 24 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on February 25 2021

Forest women in Anantagiri forest in the south-east of India check out their solar dryer. (file photo) There is a growing shift and awareness in mainstream political, corporate and public debate about the need for climate action. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 2021 (IPS) – A keen awareness about the intersection of our ecosystem and the “accelerating destabilisation of the climate” is helping shift the narrative for climate action and can help us transition from being polluters to becoming protectors of the climate, said Marco Lambertini, Director General at the World Wide Fund for Nature.

“Science has never been clearer. We are currently witnessing a catastrophic decline in our planet’s ecosystems and biodiversity, and an accelerating destabilisation of the climate. And today we also understand that the two are interconnected,” Lambertini told IPS. “This isn’t in fact new.”

Lambertini spoke to IPS following the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) which took place this week, with the launch of the “Medium-Term Strategy” by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Over two days, world leaders gathered virtually to discuss climate sustainability and how deeply the coronavirus pandemic worsened the current climate crisis.

“Humanity continues to misappropriate nature, commoditise it, destroy it,” Keriako Tobiko, the Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Kenya, said on Monday. “The consequences of our actions are obvious – we’re paying a heavy price for that.”

Indian environmental activist Afroz Shah, a UNEP Champion of the Earth, said during UNEA-5 that leaders must go beyond talk and ensure implementation of measures to protect the environment.

“There must be a paradigm shift in the narrative, to go from being a polluter to a protector,” he said, urging leaders to make sure this message was given to every citizen.

Lambertini told IPS this “shift” in the narrative was already happening.

“What is new is that this awareness is beginning to reach mainstream political, corporate and public debate,” Lambertini added. “The narrative is also shifting. Conserving nature is not only being seen as an ecological and moral issue, but also an economic, development, health and equity issue. This is a true cultural revolution in our civilisation.”

Lambertini’s insight complemented what was said during UNEA-5.

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, said during the assembly that a “green recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic would be a step in the right direction of implementing changes to protect the environment.

Tackling environmental sustainability was, after all, another means to ending poverty, she said.

“We need to start putting words into action after UNEA-5 and that means backing a green recovery from the pandemic, stronger and national determined contributions to the Paris Agreement, more funding for adaptation, agreeing on an ambitious and implementable post-2020 biodiversity framework, and a new progress on plastic pollution,” Andersen said.

Meelis Münt, Estonia’s Secretary General of the Ministry of the Environment, echoed Andersen’s point.

“We are confident that a green and digital transition will support our post-pandemic recovery,” he said, adding Estonia aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, with their government’s plans to “lead the production of solid coastal fuel based electricity by 2035”.

Other speakers at UNEA-5 included ministers from Kenya, Brazil, Jamaica and Malawi, among others, many of whom shared the initiatives their countries were implementing to protect the environment.

Marcus Henrique Morais Paranaguá, Brazil’s Deputy Minister for Climate and International Relations, pointed out that for Brazilians it was a unique situation where development and preservation of the Amazon forest had to be balanced.

“The Amazon forest alone occupies 49 percent of our territory and over 60 percent of our territory is covered today with natural vegetation,” he said. “Brazil must implement innovative public policy to balance nature conservation and the promotion of sustainable development.”

Pearnel Charles Jr., Jamaica’s Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change, shared that his country’s government was in the process of updating their climate change policy so that it complemented the Paris Agreement. He added that Jamaica’s administration also increased its “emissions reduction ambition,” and was implementing a tree planting initiative to reduce biodiversity loss.

Tobiko of Kenya said a big milestone for the country was banning single-use plastic in public conservation areas. Kenya has recently been acknowledged and applauded for its successful fight against single use plastic.

“We cannot afford another lost decade for biodiversity,” Lambertini told IPS. “Many ecosystems like coral reefs and tropical forests are heading towards tipping points and one million species are now threatened with extinction.”

“If we are to collectively survive and thrive, particularly in this COVID-19 pandemic, we must take the opportunity to review, reevaluate and possibly reinvent in charting the most sustainable way forward,” Charles Jr. said.

Overall, Lambertini was hopeful, citing a heightened awareness of climate justice among activists, and the fact that nature conservation was now seen as an economic, health and equity issue.

“We need clarity and alignment, to create a level playing field, and a north star/southern cross able to unite governments, businesses, investors and consumers around the ambition science demands,” he told IPS. “Only in this way we will meet the challenge to transition to an equitable, nature-positive and net-zero carbon world and forums like UNEA-5 must pave the way for these commitments and more importantly, concrete actions.”

 

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Scientists in Thailand work to combat zoonotic diseases at their source. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates “intimate” linkages between the health of humans, animals and ecosystems, as zoonotic diseases spread between animals and people, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief said February 21. Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via UN News

By Andy Peters
EDINBURGH, Scotland, May 24 2021 (IPS)

Although the World Health Organization’s (WHO) mission to discover its origins has proven inconclusive, the Covid-19 pandemic has nonetheless clearly highlighted the need for better care, attention, and investment in animal health systems.

Without a decisive change of course to prevent other diseases from jumping the species barrier, we will likely be unable to avoid the pandemics of the future, which could prove even more severe and destructive.

Some 75 per cent of emerging human infections are shared with animals, according to a UN report, and these emerging zoonoses could just as easily spread or mutate to unleash the next pandemic.

Investing in a stronger and more resilient global animal health system is a clear win-win: it protects all people through the prevention, surveillance, diagnosis, and treatment of otherwise dangerous animal diseases – before they cross species and borders.

However, investment alone will not overcome the fact that our current animal health systems are hamstrung by shortcomings in a crucial area: data.

Poor, disparate, under-researched, and inaccurate data on animal health issues prevent officials and authorities in many parts of the world from taking effective interventions against emerging animal diseases. Such limitations endanger both human and animal health, and leave us all vulnerable to the threat of future pandemics.

To improve our current defences against emerging animal diseases, the world needs more focused and directed investment into the systematic collection, organisation, and use of existing animal health data.

Firstly, we need more and better data on animal health. This includes greater surveillance of animal disease on farms, at border crossings and at wet markets, which are all important interfaces through which animal diseases can spread to humans.

Secondly, we must also ensure we make better use of our existing data. For instance, SEBI-Livestock is using advanced informatics to unlock insights from hard-to-reach data about disease prevalence and mortality, and making it more readily available to decision-makers and scientists in the Global South.

Furthermore, a better standard of data-sharing is also necessary in the fight against the future global health threats. Mechanisms and platforms through which doctors and veterinarians, governments and health authorities can share knowledge on emerging diseases and treatments are vital.

One visual tool developed by the Safe Medicines for Animals through regulatory training (SMArt) project helps animal health companies navigate complex regulatory processes, opening the door to improved animal health, and consequently, human health, around the world.

Finally, more investment in helping decision-makers harness this wide range of data for the livestock sector in low-income countries is essential. Low-income countries are disproportionately affected by neglected zoonoses, and the impact of epidemics and pandemics in these regions is exacerbated as a result, as demonstrated by Covid-19.

Providing training sessions in data literacy and data analysis skills, and raising awareness of global animal health resources will be crucial in helping low-income countries leverage valuable data for greater resilience.

Although data by itself is not enough, with more investment we can build up the knowledge and resources we need to reduce the threat of emerging infectious diseases.

This is why the Action for Animal Health coalition has united groups such as the World Veterinary Association, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Brooke, along with SEBI-Livestock, to call for more support for better, and safer, animal health systems worldwide.

With the knowledge and lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic fresh in our minds, we now stand at an important crossroads.

We can choose to ignore animal health, and continue to endanger human health as a result, or we can begin to properly focus and invest in better animal health systems, using data to guide our interventions.

If we follow this path, we can begin to beat the pandemics of the future before they have even begun.

* Prof. Andy Peters is Program Director, the Centre for Supporting Evidence Based Interventions in Livestock (SEBI-Livestock), at the University of Edinburgh

 

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Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By External Source
JOHANNESBURG, May 24 2021 (IPS)

Social issues and crises tend to affect women more severely than men. This is why terms like “gender mainstreaming policies”, “gender-responsive interventions” and “gender-based budgeting” have become more popular in public policy discussions in recent years.

The case has been made for the need to include gender in every analysis of social policy. But many of the toolkits which have been designed to do so have come up short. This is for a variety of reasons. Some of these shortcomings include a singular focus on women rather than relations between men and women; a focus on policy outcomes without a change in policy processes; and the inclusion of aspirational gender equality goals rather than goals for practical implementation.

The slowdown in economic activity and the restrictions on movement made women particularly vulnerable to physical abuse, a loss of income, and a decline in mental and emotional well-being, among others

But a framework developed by retired economics professor Marilyn Power offers a practical solution. Her framework can be used to evaluate the effects an event is likely to have on women. It can be applied to policies too. It draws together common aspects applied in gender studies and includes accounting for caring and domestic labour, considering human well-being, human agency, making ethical judgements, and undertaking an intersectional analysis.

I have used Power’s framework to examine the impact of COVID-19 on South African women. My research found that many of the challenges women experienced had been made worse by the pandemic. This was mainly as a result of the slowdown in economic activity and the restrictions on movement. These made women particularly vulnerable to physical abuse, a loss of income, and a decline in mental and emotional well-being, among others.

 

How women were affected

Household circumstances: The framework states that household circumstances should be considered in addition to individual circumstances. Household circumstances are vital when studying women because they tend to be the primary caregivers in the home, the number of female-headed households has grown, and they perform the bulk of domestic or household labour.

The importance of looking at both household and individual circumstances becomes clear when one looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure of schools and early childhood development centres meant that women experienced an increase in their domestic responsibilities. Evidence shows that far more women than men reported increased time spent on childcare during the first few months of the hard lockdown.

Human well-being and agency: The pandemic affected both the well-being and agency of women.

Human well-being has been defined as “what people are able to be and do”. Amartya Sen, an award-winning economist, has recommended the use of five instrumental freedoms to measure well-being. These list aspects which define an individual’s relationship to their communities or the state. They include political freedoms, economic freedoms, social freedoms, transparency guarantees and protective security.

These freedoms include, for instance, having enough assets, the right to live a life of dignity, and the peace of mind which goes with feeling safe in one’s community.

Agency, on the other hand, has been defined by political analyst and feminist Lois McNay as “the capacity of a person (or other living and material entities) to intervene in the world in a manner that is deemed … to be independent or relatively autonomous”. Thus, the more freedoms individuals are guaranteed in society, the more their human agency will be enhanced.

During the pandemic women were more likely to lose their jobs than men. This loss had a major impact on women’s economic freedoms as well as their social freedoms.

Making ethical judgements: Ethical judgements in the framework relate to traditional economic assumptions which predicate that economic analyses or policies are value and judgement free. Others have argued, however, that policies and interventions which do not explicitly deal with value judgements only serve to mask “implicit assumptions about race, class and gender”, even if unintentionally.

It is thus important to engage with value judgements to make clear what implicit assumptions underlie public policy decision making.

One example of this was the South African government’s social security response to the pandemic, which included the Social Relief of Distress grant. This grant was only made available to unemployed individuals who didn’t get any other grant or qualify for Unemployment Insurance Fund benefits. The conditions under which the unemployed could apply for this grant were stringent – and still emphasised the need to work.

The stringent conditions meant that many vulnerable individuals were excluded. These included those who might already be receiving existing grants or received remittances from family members, but who might still be living in poverty. A large percentage of these would be women.

Intersectional analysis: This requires thinking about other social identities which define women beyond just their gender, such as race, sexual orientation and class, among others. These additional social identities privilege and disadvantage women in varying ways.

Black women, for instance, would be more severely affected by the social ills which have accompanied this pandemic than any other group of women in South Africa. Separating women by race in policy analysis would thus provide useful information which would not be otherwise observed had women been studied as a homogeneous group. Similar arguments could be made for further segmenting groups according to their social identities.

 

Next steps

Women make up half of the South African population. It’s therefore important to consider how decisions and policies affect them. Failing to undertake a gendered analysis doesn’t equate to men and women being treated equally. Rather that women are likely to be implicitly negatively biased.

Odile Mackett, Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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