NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - The U.S. President Donald Trump has finally made good his threat to withdraw his country from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in a move that has been condemned by leaders and personalities from all over the world including USA.During his campaign for U.S. presidency, Trump vowed to put ‘America first.’ But his decision to withdraw from an international agreement that has been signed by 194 and ratified by 147 countries has left America walking on a lonely path alongside Syria and Nicaragua."Donald Trump has made a historic mistake which our grandchildren will look back on with stunned dismay," Thomson Reuters Foundation quoted Michael Brune, the Executive Director, Sierra Club.In a statement released by Climate Justice Info, civil society representatives and social movement leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States vowed to build people power to address the climate crisis despite Trump’s decision. "Climate change is not waiting for U.S. action and neither can the rest of the world,” said Ben Schreiber of the Friends of the Earth USA.“Trump has turned the U.S. into a rogue climate state and the world should use economic and diplomatic pressure to compel the U.S. to do its fair share,” said Schreiber adding that the majority of Americans do not support the president and his fossil fuel agenda that puts corporate profits above people. Sreedhar Ramamurthi of the Environics India pointed out that it is because of the historic U.S. pollution, that the world is already suffering the consequences of a rapidly warming world with droughts, fires, and floods wreaking havoc with livelihoods and lives, even displacing whole communities. “Trump wants to add to that historic pollution and condemn present and future generations in the global south to further suffering and death. We cannot allow this, there must be forceful political, legal, and economic consequences levied against the U.S. Trump must realise that in the case of climate, nature has the trump card and not him and his cronies," said Ramamurthi.Rachel Smolker of the BiofuelWatch USA also expressed her disappointment in Trump’s decision. "I am ashamed of my country's persistent role in undermining efforts to create a strong and binding agreement, now culminating in Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement,” she said. “Here in the U.S. climate justice activists are scrambling hard to find a path forward from within. We hope our allies will let their voices be heard at U.S. embassies - to both isolate Donald Trump and his ilk - and apply pressure on the U.S. to step up and take responsibility for real and equitable solutions to the escalating climate catastrophe," added Smolker.In a statement to the media, Trump’s announcement was also highly regretted by the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC Secretariat also noted the announced intention to renegotiate the modalities for the US participation in the agreement. In that regard, the secretariat said it was ready to engage in dialogue with the United…

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta and Dr Juan Clos, UN-Habitat Executive Director have called for concerted efforts to address the challenges facing cities, towns and urban areas.Speaking when he launched the 26th session of the UN-Habitat Governing Council in Nairobi, Uhuru said planned urban centres are key to better human life."This session is a milestone for UN-Habitat. It is the first meeting of the Governing Council after the adoption of the momentous 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and the New Urban Agenda. As you know, the 2030 Agenda is a comprehensive, integrated and inclusive outcome document," Uhuru said.The New Urban Agenda aims to achieve peace, prosperity, dignity and opportunity for all, on a healthy planet. It sets our global strategy around urbanization for the next two decades."I congratulate each and every one of you for your invaluable contribution to the success of Habitat III. That enterprise shows the power and promise of multilateralism," Uhuru said.The President said the document presents a renewed political commitment for sustainable development, and provides the basis for reviewing the mandate of the UN-Habitat and its positioning within the UN System."Our immediate responsibility is its implementation. We must quickly seize the opportunities, address the challenges and implement the Agenda. The first step – one we can take here and now – is to send a strong political message in support of the new Agenda," Uhuru said.Dr Clos said urbanisation worldwide, but most specifically in Africa, will be one of the most significant economic and social transformations in the next decades."The African continent is experiencing a shift towards more productive sectors of the economy, from the agrarian and extractive industries, towards industrial and service oriented economies," Clos said.He further noted that one of the most critical vehicles for this transmission is well-designed urbanisation that provides a productive scenario necessary to sustain this very strategic transformation for Africa.He noted that as a host of the UN-Habitat, Kenya remains fully committed to the agency and is ready to contribute constructively, and to work in partnership with the agency to secure the objectives of the important Session of the Governing Council."Let us consider the task that lies before us. Projections suggest that an additional 2.5 billion people will enter urban areas by 2050. Almost 90 percent of this increase is expected to occur in Asia and Africa. I need not add that this should be a matter of concern to all of us," Uhuru said.He noted that the challenge is equally clear here in Kenya."According to our National Bureau of Statistics, by 2050 about half our people will live in cities. Indeed, in 2030, the city of Nairobi will have about 6 million people," he said.He added, "For our part we have found that the creation of 47 counties under our new constitution has significantly influenced Kenya's urbanization: our new county governments will handle much of the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. That's because counties are the homes of the secondary cities, which are growing…

BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - Environment experts have called for a strong public/private partnership to finance agro-forestry and fight against climate change. During the SBSTA 46 climate conference in Bonn, Germany, experts from World Agroforstry Centre, (ICRAF), Oro verde –Tropical Forestry Foundation and Global Nature Fund (GNF), tapped into different Agro-forestry success cases to showcase potential pathways to drive the fight against climate change.The discussions were held under the theme “High impact public-private climate finance” with case studies from Africa and Latin America.According to Dr Peter Minang of ICRAF, Agroforests and agroforestry can be direct targets of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programs, or indirect parts of the necessary conditions for success.“Whether or not agro-forestry becomes a core element of REDD+ depends on the country’s forest definition. Where carbon stocks in agroforestry cannot be directly targeted in REDD+, agroforestry still can be included in REDD+ strategies, as ways to shift demand for land and provide alternative sources of products otherwise derived from forest over-exploitation or conversion, thereby avoiding leakage from forest protection efforts,” Minang pointed out .Financing Agro-forestry in the fight against climate change experts say has become imperative and can take the form of supporting capacity building to increase the number of investible projects, leveraging smallholder farmers who are key private investors ,analyse risk reduction potential for environment and social improvement and establishing a monitoring system.“Agro-forestry is a climate-smart process that requires adequate attention and financial support,” said Dr Lalisa Duguma, scientist at the World Agro-forestry Centre and ASB Partnership.Agro-forestry he said helps in agriculture adaptation and resilience building, restoring the soil and enhancing crop production.However, Torsten Klimper of the German Tropical Forest Foundation OroVerde cautioned that funding biodiversity projects requires respect for the laws regulating biodiversity.“There is need for investors to ensure total respect of the laws regulating biodiversity,” he cautioned.According to experts, ecological farming encompasses a wide range of modern crop and livestock management systems that seek to increase yields and incomes, and maximise the sustainable use of local natural resources while minimising the need for external inputs. Ecological farming ensures healthy farming and healthy food for today and tomorrow, by protecting soil, water and climate. It promotes biodiversity, and does not contaminate the environment with chemical inputs or genetically engineered plant varietiesThis involves Agro-forestry that focuses on the wide range of work with trees grown on farms and in rural landscapes. Among these are fertiliser trees for land regeneration, soil health and food security, fruit trees for nutrition, fodder trees that improve smallholder livestock production, timber and fuelwood trees for shelter and energy, medicinal trees to combat disease, and trees that produce gums, resins or latex products. Many of these trees are multipurpose, providing a range of social, economic and environmental benefits, the experts explained.In anticipation of the reviewing of NDC’s in 2018 experts recommended the inclusion and mainstreaming of Agro-forestry in the various national climate change agenda.Dr Minang called for creating mechanisms to reward Agro-forestry practitioners for the environmental services they provide,…

Africa is swimming in a vast ocean of agricultural potentials yet depends on imported food to survive. A glimmer of hope could lay in an initiative by African Development Bank (AfDB). PAMACC Senior reporter, Arison TAMFU explores this:NDOP, Cameroon, (PAMACC News) - Little Sonia stands with arms akimbo in front of a mud house impatiently waiting for food to be served. It is a breezy evening in Ndop, a locality in the North West region of Cameroon. Inside the kitchen her mother, Theresa Ngum is immersed in preparing Sonia’s most preferred delicacy - rice. “This can barely feed them” says Theresa referring to her five children.In 2001, her husband died after a protracted illness, leaving her with five mouths to feed- three boys and two girls. These are difficult days for the family.“We are just struggling to survive. The children are always hungry. There is no money to buy food.I borrowed 500 francs cfa to buy the rice I am preparing” saysTheresa, speaking in Pidgin English.Theresa lives in Ndop, a community of predominantly rice farmers, paradoxicallyshe and hundred other farmers in Ndop consume mostly rice imported from China and Thailand. She owns a rice farm just in her backyard but will rather borrow money to buy the Chinese rice she is preparing for her children.“The children prefer the Chinese rice because it’s more tasteful. Besides, our own rice is scarce” she says grinding spices to liven up the rice.The Cameroonian government’s reluctance to boast local production has resulted in the massive and indiscriminate importation of rice into the country. The import policy has killed the local rice sector.Theresa recollects miserably the good-old-days when Ndop rice ruled Cameroon. “We did not know about any rice but Ndop rice. It was the only rice consumed all over Cameroon and it was very cheap. We, smallholder farmers could feed our familiesand still made enough money from selling rice. There was no poverty” she recalls.“We have nothing now. I am a farmer and why should I buy the food that I can cultivate from someone else?” she asks rhetorically.Naïve as her question may sound,it signals a key problem that currently affects not only Cameroon but the rest of the African continent. What Theresa does not know is that, when it comes to food security, there is good and bad news for Africa.Paradox of a ‘breadbasket’ continentHere is the good news: Africa is blessed with great potentialsto feed itself andexpand its food and agricultural exports. The continent holds almost 65 percent of the world’s arable land which is suited for growing food crops, comprising as many as 450 million hectares that are not forested, protected, or densely populated according to World Bank’s Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness report.Africa uses less than 2 percent of its renewable water sources, compared to a world average of five percent the report adds. The World Bank estimates that food production and processing in Africa could generate $1 trillion a year by 2030.“We are lucky to be endowed…