KUMASI, Ghana (PAMACC News) - President Trump’s Executive Order on Climate Change will have far reaching impacts on many developing countries, especially on the African continent, which is already bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change. African Civil Society, under the umbrella of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), says reversing the Obama climate plan is one of the greatest injustices and an onslaught on Mother Earth, especially in the fight against climate change. The Energy Independence Executive Order, signed by US President, Donald Trump on March 29, 2017, has been hailed by groups in the fossil fuels business, but condemned by environmental campaigners as over a dozen measures enacted by President Obama to curb climate change have been suspended. “Trump’s Climate Change Executive Order is rolling back the many years of global efforts that yielded the Convention and the Paris Agreement. The global community and other world leaders should resist the temptation of following the footstep of Trump to take the world several steps back in the fight against climate change,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA Secretary-General. For a safer world, countries that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement will urgently need to raise their ambition to increase the level of their greenhouse emission reduction targets communicated to the UNFCCC and keeping the global temperature to below 1.5OC. The current aggregate level of the communicated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are estimated to lead to the average global temperature increase above 30C by 2030, unless radical emissions reduction targets are urgently adopted by Parties. The NDC of the United State of America submitted to the UNFCCC on March 31, 2015 commits USA to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 26%–28% below the 2005 level by 2025. The US effort constitutes a part to the global comity of nations’ efforts to keep the planet safe. “As one of the major contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions, the US continues to owe a huge ecological debt that can only be paid by the demonstration that it is committed to servicing this climate debt in an equitable, fair and just manner. Such efforts should align with the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capacity (CBDRC) of the Convention,” said a statement from PACJA. African Civil Society is worried efforts to improve people’s vulnerability to climate change are being eroded by Trump’s Executive Order. Currently, impacts of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa have led to deaths of humans and livestock in the region. Farmers in most parts of the Africa are feeling impacts of the changing climate in their agricultural production and productivity. According to Sam Ogallah, Programme’s Manager at PACJA, Trump's action on climate change is likely to exacerbate the current migrant crisis. "Climate change impacts are pushing many youth out of developing countries in search of better lives in developed countries. Some of these youth in an attempt to migrate to Europe have lost…

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa have established a framework that will see a rapid implementation of climate change policies in their different countries into practical ground actions. The peoples’ representatives through the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change, known with French acronym as REPACC say they are now set to bridge policy and actions on the ground that have so far lagged behind in visible climate change projects and infrastructure.Even with the existence of climate change policies that continue to stay on paper and the creation of institutions that have continued to lay fallow, little or no actions are visible on the ground for most countries in sub-saran Africa, experts say.“ It is time for action to move climate change challenges in Africa to a new level with adapted infrastructures and skills that will help find lasting solution,” says Cavaye Djibril, House Speaker of the National Assembly in Cameroon.He said the countries in Africa,most of who submitted their NDCs and signed the Paris Agreement(to quantify climate protection goal) lack the necessary expertise to effect national measures and projects to make climate finance available for the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.African Parliamentarians say they have now got the backing of the Climate Policy and Energy Security Programme of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Germany with the training of the required expertise to formulate , prepare, supervise the implementation of projects to help their different countries adapt to climate impacts.To that effect, a cooperation agreement was signed in Yaounde on March 27, between the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change to help fast-track measures needed to bridge climate policies into action in the different countries, to speed up the emergence of body of knowledge on climate and the relevant legislation and to manifest the role of parliamentarians in African climate change responses in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, globally, regionally and locally.According to the President of the Permanent Executive Committee of the Pan African Parliamentarian Network on Climate Change (PAPNCC), Cameroonian born, Hon. Awudu Mbaya Cyprian, the backing of the German Konrad Foundation now gives African law makers the claws to better push climate policies to action.“The Pan African Parliament for Climate Change will hence be better armed for actions that will bring m the much expected solutions to climate change challenges,” Awudu said.Professor Olivier Ruppel, resident representative and director, climate policy and energy programme of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung said technical expertise, financial support with help in the infrastructure development and international cooperation needed by African countries to implement climate change projects on the ground.Cameroon created the Cameroon Councils against Climate Change, National Observatory on Climate Change in 2011 aimed at monitoring the effects of climate change on people, agriculture and ecosystems, and guiding work on climate action. Other policy actions have since followed like the creation of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction under the ministry of territorial administration, becoming a member of COMIFAC…

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Women in Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde who deal in water dependent businesses and school going girls are paying a heavy cost, losing out in their business and sacrificing school hours due to harsh weather conditions.Prolonged absence of rain, which experts attribute to climate change and a swelling urban population in the nation’s capital has caused scarcity of portable water, significantly affecting water related business activities that are a major source of income for mostly women as well as well as impaction on the education of the girl children who sacrifice school hours, navigating long distances in search of scarce drinking water.College and primary school authorities in the nation’s capital say water scarcity brings its own set of complications on the education of girl children who traditionally accompany their mothers early in the morning to far distances in search of drinking water that has become scarce because of prolonged drought. As a consequence many do either come very late to school or register regular absences that impact on their studies.“Girls are notorious for coming late to school with a record high absentee rate especially during the dry season periods. We found out this is the result of their early morning duty to accompany their mothers in search of scarce drinking water,” says Moka Charles, Principal of Esperance Bilingual secondary school in Yaounde.Women who run water dependent businesses or economic activity like restaurant, local beer production, laundry services etc in the capital also attest that they suffer a steep decline in their income during the water crisis due total absence or lateness in accessing portable water.“ We are obliged to travel long distances in search of water costing us time and money. This reduces our income because we prepare our food late and so lose most of our customers,” attest Monique Nzogo who runs a restaurant at Obili, a neighbourhood in Yaounde.On the occasion of the celebration of the 2017 World Water Day in Yaounde, school authorities and women involved in water related economic activities have called on government to invest in waste water recycling projects as solution pathway to the crisis.In line with the theme of this year’s celebrations 'Water and Wastewater’, experts say investing in the safe collection, treatment, transportation, and re-use of waste water can provide huge opportunities to improve the quality of life of the poor in urban areas like the city of Yaounde.Women activists and business groups in the nation’s capital are calling on the government to make potable water accessible to them in order to reduce the pain and brunt they bear in accessing water, as well as to check the spread of water-borne diseases and related illnesses threatening lives and livelihood due to scarcity.“ There is an urgent need for government and other stakeholders to take interest in investing in waste water recycling especially during prolonged water scarcity periods . This will greatly help in reducing the water shortage gap in Yaounde,” says Alice Eko vice president of the Mendong…

NAIVASHA, Kenya (PAMACC News) - After weathering the strain of decreasing water levels, Lake Naivasha, the largest fresh water body in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, is faced with a new threat: pollution.Solid waste load from the surrounding economic society is on the rise. Filthy water used to clean fish is drained back into the lake. As pastoralists stress the lake further by driving their livestock into the water body for a thirst break.But it is the increasing volumes of effluent from the surrounding horticultural farms that has led the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to sound alarm about the threat facing the lake.According to Joakim Harlin, head of the Freshwater Unit at UN Environment, nutrient loading from the use of fertilizers and other chemicals by the farm is leading to the spread of colonizers like the water hyacinth.“This has led to the death of fish populations in the lake and the clogging of waterways used by fishermen, leisure boats and wildlife,” says Harlin. Pollution is also putting pressure on the Lake Naivasha habitats, argues Fleur Ng’weno, of Nature Kenya.According to her, hundreds of migratory bird species which nest in the Lake could be affected by the increasing pollution.Unique plant life found there too is being affected by pollution, including the irregular rise and fall of water levels, she says.Yet, the Nakuru County government depends on tourism flow there, which is second to Mombasa, to boost its revenues. The community also depends on the lake to feed their domestic water needs, she adds.“Lake Naivasha is now supporting a powerful horticultural industry, a growing population of flower farm workers, geothermal energy production, intense fishing and a runaway building boom,” says Ng’weno.However, not everything looks cloudy for the lake. UNEP, in collaboration with partners pooled a group of volunteers to help clean Lake Naivasha to mark the World Water Day.The volunteers managed to collect solid waste weighing hundreds of tonnes, which was later taken to the community cooker for incineration, according to Lis Mullin Bernhardt, the cleanup lead.“The purpose of the cleanup was to raise awareness about the increasing pollution facing the lake and show the community that they are not alone in conserving this water body of international importance,” said Bernhardt, who is also the UNEP Freshwater Unit Programme Officer.