Blog from Climate Change Conference Bonn

By Raja Jarrah, CARE’s Senior Advisor on REDD
June 16, 2011

The metaphor of forests being the lungs of the earth has been often used. Scientists hate that metaphor but it works for most of us. Among the many functions of forests, they recycle the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and emit oxygen. Yet tropical forests are disappearing at an alarming rate – not only emitting more greenhouse gases in the process (as trees burn or decompose), but also reducing their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from other sources.

The scheme called REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) was invented to address this problem. It is fraught with technical and political challenges – how to measure forests properly, how to stop their loss, how to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities who depend on forests, and how to pay for it. These details have preoccupied negotiators and their advisers since REDD was agreed in Bali in 2007. And they are very important, because we have to make sure that saving forests is done in a way that respects the rights of the people who depend on them, particularly those whose voice is seldom heard, like women and indigenous peoples.

Yet while there has been some progress in working out these details, it seems that we have lost the sense of urgency. We are spending ages designing a complex system of rules that will end up only saving some of the world’s forests – those in countries that have the wherewithal to comply with those rules. Yet it is within our power to completely halt the loss of forests if we want to – arguably the quickest reduction in emissions that we can make. To make this happen, we must: make it a global goal that we all work towards; put the money behind this commitment; and curb the demand from our industrialized society for biofuels, animal feed, and beef, the three main reasons that tropical forests are converted to agricultural land.

Every day we are putting more carbon into the atmosphere. We turn the carbon that is locked underground in fossil fuels into carbon that is freely circulating in the atmosphere – forever. REDD alone will not stop runaway climate change, though it can achieve results fast, and give time for the transition to a low carbon culture to take place. So REDD only makes sense if urgent action is taken to reduce emissions as quickly as possible in all other sectors at the same time. Returning to the analogy of forests as lungs – what’s the point in treating lung disease if the patient will not promise to quit smoking?

So what is missing from the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) process? Two straightforward commitments to remind us why we are doing all this: a binding commitment to ambitious emissions reductions from all countries; and a vision to reduce deforestation to zero in ten years. The rest is just necessary detail.

At Akodokodoi village in Northern Uganda, the tree divides us. On one side, we the project staff from CARE and partner organizations sit on short wooden folding chairs, forming a loose circle with the men. On the other side of the tree the women settle themselves on the ground. I wonder if they prefer this shield of separateness, the better to breastfeed their children or shift them around on their laps. Some look off into the distance or tug distractedly at tufts of grass, their legs stretched out in front of them.

But to assume the women to be disinterested observers would be a mistake. After the men speak of how the community worked with us to get the borehole that is now their main water source, we ask the women what difference the borehole has made for them. They speak without hesitation and with the precision of those that know what they’re talking about. The first thing a women named Janet Adongo says is that that their husbands don’t beat them anymore. In the past, they would leave early in the morning to walk three kilometers to the nearest water point at a school. Once there, they stood in line for hours. They came home to find husbands irate with hunger because lunch hadn’t been prepared yet and suspicious of their wives’ whereabouts. Violence ensued.

“This facility is encouraging our husbands to love us more,” says one woman.

The fact that lack of water close by leads to domestic violence was no surprise to me, having seen in other countries how water scarcity affects practically every aspects of domestic life. Yet this situation seemed particularly egregious.

“Why,” I question with the boldness of the naïve, “do the men not believe their wives when they say it takes half a day to get water?”

At this point, the pace of the conversation picks up. There is some back and forth between the men and the women. The rest of us wait impatiently for the translation.

As I understand it, the men’s viewpoint boils down to this: collecting water is a woman’s burden to shoulder. One of the men goes as far as to say that he paid a bride price for his wife and the issue of going to verify how long it takes to get water is none of his business—she must work. A woman counters that she finds the issue of bride price insulting.

The situation in Akodokodoi village is by no means typical. But it’s far from unusual. It was proof to me that water is not a neutral issue but rather a deeply gendered and political one. Women get stuck with the burden of collecting it, a matter in which they have little choice. Women are usually left out of decisions about how water is used and accessed, particularly when it used for productive purposes like agriculture.

Access to safe water reduces death from diarrheal disease, helps keep children in school and frees up time that can be spent making a living. But this only temporarily ameliorates some of the unfairness to women and girls. If water scarcity increases once again, girls will be the first ones to be pulled out of school to search for water while their brothers remain undisturbed.

What are the implications of situations like this for the development organizations, donors, governments and other actors that promote, advocate and directly implement interventions that increase access to safe water and sanitation? If providing access to safe water and sanitation puts us at the nexus of power and prejudice it also gives us an open door into changing and challenging cultural and institutional norms that perpetuate inequity. Doing so not only improves the effectiveness of the programs, as we’ve seen from direct experience in projects that prioritize women’s involvement, but also has far-reaching repercussions, as these norms are also at the heart of many other poverty and social justice issues.

For development organizations, what if one of our criteria for selecting communities to assist with water access was whether they would be willing to challenge the status quo by having men and boys help with water collection responsibilities? What if policy makers prioritized women’s control and ownership of water and land as an important an issue as their right to an education? What if water councils and watershed management bodies actively sought the participation of women in decision-making, realizing that men and women think about and use water in very different ways? What if donors supported smarter policies towards the provision of water and sanitation?

After its heated turn, the conversation in Akodokodoi village flowed to other testimonies of what a critical difference the water point made for the community. But I was most moved by the early words of those women who were not afraid to speak the truth. Let’s act with the same boldness.

If you’re looking for a practical way to contribute to smarter investments in water and sanitation access, please support the Water for the World Act which strengthens the U.S. government’s ability to take a more strategic approach to water and sanitation.

From the Big Easy to the Big Apple: Local to Global Impacts of Climate Change

I just arrived in New York City for the Millennium Development Goals Summit – a chance for the nations of the world to recommit to meeting eight global development goals by 2015.  This trip comes right on the heels of my trip last week to New Orleans for a climate change strategy retreat.  As part of that meeting, we toured the wetlands and volunteered in the Lower 9^th Ward, where the impacts of Hurricane Katrina are still very much evident. 

The captain of our boat tour – also a local fisherman – shared at length the impacts he and his family have seen on the wetlands and the result of those impacts on their livelihoods as fishermen. He recounted how, as the wetlands have shrunk and the area of open water has increased, their coastal communities become more vulnerable to storm surge: the wetlands act as a speed bump for the rushing water.  In the Lower 9^th, we saw what was once a neighborhood with rows of houses that now features a scattering of dwellings and countless overgrown lots, some with porch stairs still leading to the house that was swept away. 

The story of New Orleans is not unlike stories you might hear on the coasts of Mozambique, in the highlands of Peru, on the floodplains of Bangladesh, or in the farm fields of northern Ghana. Locally and globally, climate change is affecting people: their lives and their livelihoods.  In developing countries, climate change disproportionately impacts people living in extreme poverty, particularly girls and women.  These individuals are the least responsible for causing climate change but are the first – and worst – to be hit. 

As world leaders gather this week in New York, the climate crisis looms overhead like a dark storm cloud. The impacts of climate change threaten to reverse decades of development progress and severely impair our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, particularly MDG1 to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.  Part of MDG 1 is a target to halve the proportion of hungry people between 1990 and 2015.

Global hunger remains a challenge without climate change.  Just last week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program released the latest numbers of hungry and malnourished people: 925 million people.  While the numbers represent a decrease over 2009, when numbers topped one billion, the numbers are still higher than before the food price and economic crises of 2007-2009 and higher than the number of hungry people in 1990-1992.  The proportion of hungry people has decreased from 20% to 16%, but that is still a long way from the 10% that is the MDG goal.  And let’s face it, 925 million hungry people is 925 million too many.

Climate change makes our job harder.  It’s expected that climate change will reduce agricultural productivity in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa by as much as 50%, shorten the growing season, and contribute to decreased fisheries resources. The melting glaciers in the Andes will alter water availability, negatively impacting agricultural production.  Extreme weather events, like the flooding in Pakistan, are expected to become more frequent, severe, and intense.  As in those floods, natural hazards can adversely impact food security for longer than the immediate aftermath as a family’s assets are sold off, destroyed, or washed away.

Yet there’s no need to throw up our hands and give up.  There are solutions to the climate crisis and to extreme poverty.  These solutions require political will and a mobilized citizenry to call for and to take bold action: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately and aggressively, to provide substantial assistance to help local communities adapt to climate impacts, and to improve the way we address short-term and long-term global hunger.  The MDG Summit is just the time for that bold action. 

by Dr. Helene Gayle, CARE president and CEO

Climate change has the potential to wipe out the last 25 years of development gains in some parts of the world. As the number of natural disasters has doubled within the last 20 years, the world's poorest people are already experiencing the effects of climate change. More than 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day, and 70 percent of these people are girls and women.

Climate change acts as a multiplier of existing threats to food security, education, health, natural resources and the day-to-day struggle for survival. Greenhouse gas emissions create more extreme weather patterns, shift seasons and change the amount of rainfall and average temperatures, causing crops to fail and water supplies to dry up or run over.

CARE has worked on climate change for decades and is helping lead the charge with one of the largest adaptation programs in the world. We have a three part approach:

1. Reduce poverty and help communities adapt

Our adaptation programs help communities withstand drought and floods through simple, cost-effective activities like harvesting rainwater, planting dense mangroves to protect crops from storm waves and using more resistant seeds in their fields. For example, seasonal floods are becoming worse in Bangladesh. CARE helps the women most affected by climate change adapt – sometimes making a change as basic as raising ducks instead of chickens, so their food supply can swim instead of sink the next time there's a flood.

Early warning systems and community-based disaster response plans are also critical adaptation strategies. For every dollar we invest in disaster risk reduction and preparedness roughly seven dollars are saved in disaster response.

2. Protect the environment, conserve and reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Plowing fields and "slash and burn" agriculture releases carbon in to the atmosphere. Pesticide and fertilizer use releases nitrous oxide – 200 to 300 times more effective in trapping heat than carbon dioxide. CARE promotes climate-friendly agriculture – minimum tillage, building barriers to prevent hillside erosion and planting nitrogen-rich trees on farming plots – to help conserve land and reduce greenhouse emissions.

Deforestation is responsible for 20-30 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions. Reforestation preserves existing biodiversity, takes away carbon from the atmosphere and, after 30 years, builds a natural repository for greenhouse gases. CARE and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) alliance currently has pilot projects in Mozambique and Tanzania to help protect the coastal marine and forest area's unique biodiversity while developing more diverse, sustainable and profitable agriculture and fisheries for communities dependent on natural resources. Our Mi Bosque project in Guatemala helps communities to grow forests and manage natural resources. Within the last two years alone, Mi Bosque worked with more than 2,000 community members to reforest 239,833 hectares across 132 communities. The average plot of land in the project area has experienced a 150 percent increase in productivity.

3. Seek a global solution through policy change

Policy choices will determine whether we can make poverty history despite climate change, or if climate change will make poverty even more pervasive than it is today. CARE is engaged with over a dozen global climate change alliances, including the 500 NGO-member strong Climate Action Network. Together with our partners, we are working to mobilize public and the U.S. government support to:

• Reduce emissions to keep global temperatures as far below a 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit increase as possible (right now, the global average temperature has risen almost 0.8 degrees Celsuis or 1.44 degrees Fahrenheit); and
• Ensure adaptation funding reaches and responds to the priorities of women and highly vulnerable populations.

Unless action is taken now to help the most vulnerable people adapt to climate change impacts, it will not be possible to ensure the food security of a growing (and migrating) world population.

We must – and can – do more.

Here's what you can do to help:

• Donate to help poor communities get the information and tools they need to lift themselves out of poverty and adapt to our changing climate;
• Learn more about the CARE/WWF Alliance;
• Join CARE at our National Conference in Washington, D.C., on May 11-12 to advocate for pro-poor climate change policies.

Thank you!

We’ve seen the images, heard the statistics and given what monetary donations we can. We’ve spent nights on our knees praying, days filled with thoughts, and minutes counting our blessings.

By Cynthia Brenda Awuor
CARE Kenya

My interactions with the community members that we work with at CARE Kenya are often quite fascinating. Their will and determination to improve their lives is evident. They are aware of their environment and circumstances, and possess a great wealth of knowledge. They identify solutions to their problems and, with support, some have been empowered to improve their conditions.

In our conversations, I always ask about their experience with weather conditions. There's little variation in the answers I've heard so far. "It is much warmer these days," some say. Others mention, "It is difficult to predict when the rains will fall, and when it does, sometimes it is so intense that it does more harm than good." And, "Droughts are occurring more frequently, intensely and over longer periods." All these things are affecting many people's livelihoods negatively to varying extents, and many people wonder why God is punishing them this severely.

I have carried out several climate change vulnerability exercises among different communities this year. To cope with the effects of climate change, some communities resort to detrimental activities such as cutting trees to produce charcoal, selling firewood or sharing relief food rations with livestock. They are well aware that these activities are not sustainable.

On the other hand, some communities are already adapting positively to the changes and I’m glad about that. They have come together — creating innovations, pooling resources and seizing opportunities. I have interacted with women's self-help groups and co-ops that have set up micro-credit schemes, that are producing and preserving fodder, banking agricultural seeds, planting trees and participating in the construction of water harvesting and storage infrastructure. Their hope, optimism and action reverberate to their families and communities. They show by example that it is possible to adapt and live with dignity and in security.

As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss a post-Kyoto Protocol Deal, I would like to see a much stronger political will to support efforts to deal with climate change at regional, national and local levels. I would like to see firm commitments and consequent actions by the developed and rapidly industrializing countries to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions to scientifically recommended levels. I would also like to see greater technological, technical and financial support channeled towards adaptation programs and projects in developing countries. Where feasible, developing countries should also ensure that they will seek to limit their levels of greenhouse gas emissions in their quest for development. Developing countries should also ensure that resources for adaptation are channeled towards the most vulnerable communities and groups, and that appropriate adaptation actions are implemented. Lastly, there is need to build and foster stronger partnerships in dealing with climate change among governments, vulnerable communities, civil society, the corporate sector, and research institutions among others. 

The much awaited COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark is finally here and from today, Monday 7^th December till Friday 18^th December, the world will witness with full stare the commitment of our leaders…better still If I may borrow the words of Connie Hedegaard, whether our leaders are ready to “move the world from an era of talk to an era of change”.

Since the inter-sessional climate talks in Bangkok, I have seen increased interest by Africa and for that matter my country Ghana, in the governance of climate change. Ghana government and other NGOs in Ghana such as Friends of the Earth, Civic Response and SEND Ghana have expressed the need to pressure the developed countries to take on emission reduction commitments that are required to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change that threatens the survival of humans as a species.

Over the past couple of months, my government has undertaken what one may call necessary baby steps in the governance of climate change especially in the vein of having a participatory climate change governance system in-country. The genesis of this participatory process has involved information sharing on the issues of climate change and subsequent discussions to pick up from the Ghanaian citizenry their ideas on addressing climate change. Workshops and seminars have been held for variant citizenry groups such as NGOs, traditional authorities and media. The culmination of all these workshops was a national forum held on 2^nd December that informed citizens the position that Ghana was taking to COP 15. Among other things, the main highlight from the national forum was that Ghana along with the other countries of the African Group was going to COP 15 to ask for the developed countries to take on emission reductions of at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2020.

Coming from a country that is experiencing impacts of climate change and may experience worse, I am hoping that developing countries can actually make the Annex 1 countries especially USA to feel the heat for the need to take action. It is a welcome thought that Presidents and Prime ministers of certain countries will be present at the COP 15 but let us hope that they do more good than harm; it is either they are instrumental in helping come out with a good legally binding deal or by their presence, rather draw attention to themselves and let focus be lost in the negotiations and thus they delay the process.

We all know how great an orator President Barack Obama is, and I for one am worried that USA may be playing the “Obama-mania” card with his Excellency’s presence at the COP. Serious negotiations under COP 15 may become arrested due to the presence of “Pollywood celebrities” such as his Excellency President Obama. For those of us from developing countries, the possibility of this stunt spells double doom as a USA is not prepared to take on serious commitments and may by this act delay what the negotiations could achieve.

I am not familiar with the USA system of governance but it is interesting to note that when it comes to Climate change negotiations, the President declares his inability to contribute anything concrete until a bill is passed through the senate; however, when about 30,000 soldiers had to be sent to Afghanistan, there was no waiting for the senate to decide, the President just announced it…this leaves me to wonder, how devastating does USA want Climate change and its impacts to become before they get serious?

As a working partner of the CARE “Southern Voices Project”, I am by this asking the developing country delegates and negotiators to pressure the developed countries to take on deep emission reduction commitments and also asking the Annex 1 countries especially USA to “STEP IT UP”…if greenhouse gas emissions continue, it is not Mother Earth who will die but rather the human race who will as Mother Earth adjusts other components in her system in accordance with the GHG concentration in the atmosphere to ensure a balance.

We owe it to the generation yet unborn to save our climate …we can, so we must!!!

By CARE
www.care.org/climatechange

Look at the places around the world where people are adapting to climate change and you're bound to see the same group bearing the heaviest burden: poor women. That's pretty much the definition of unfair, given that they're least responsible for the problem. And in so many countries, barriers stand between them and the assets they need build up their resilience -- things like land, credit, new technologies and places in decision-making bodies.

Yet, somehow, poor women are finding power in one thing: each other.

That was as clear as the Ugandan sky on a recent sun-drenched day in the village of Mubuku. Two leaders of the Bakyara Tweyimukye village savings & loan association sat down to explain how they are being affected by climate change - and adapting to it. Annette Agaba, a mother of five, lead the associated that has made loans for handicraft businesses, tree plantings, "kitchen gardens," and income-generating activities such as goat and poultry rearing. She chose to rear rabbits. Maria Gorretti Kasawuli has taught other mothers how to grow "kitchen gardens." Hers bursts with herbs like dodo, sukuma and eggplants.

Though they have not a keyboard or an email address, we at CARE wanted them to be part of Blog Action Day. Here are their voices, as captured by CARE's Tracy Kajumba, in a home in western Uganda.

AGABA: "This community depends on agriculture and used to get high yields from maize, beans, ground nuts and many other crops. However from the 90s, the situation has changed. We used to predict rain and prepare our gardens and plant but now days we cannot predict anything. When you are expecting rain, you get scorching heat that destroys all the crops. When you expect sunshine, you get heavy torrential rains that wash away all the crops and sweep away the house tops!"

KASAWULI: "We started with promoting hygiene and sanitation in our homes due to the high prevalence of cholera in our area. Every time we came to save, some one talked about sanitation issues and we visited each other to assess compliance. After that we were hit by floods and after affected by drought which made it difficult for us to get money, and as a group we decided to do a reflection and take action to survive. We realized that we can no longer survive on agriculture alone and agreed to diversify and buy goats using the money from the group . . . I bought a goat but had no where to keep it, and had to share my house with it. My husband later supported me and constructed a room outside. The goat produced two kids initially, I bought two more and they have now multiplied to seventeen."

AGABA: "I have also ventured into keeping rabbits which are delicious for meat and are very marketable. Diversification is the only way to go to manage the weather changes."

KASAWULI: "We have agreed in our group that every homestead should have a kitchen garden. It does not need a lot of land. You can use old basins, jerry cans, or sacks to plant your greens and vegetables. It is also easy to water the garden since it is near, small and therefore needs little water. Ten households so far have established the kitchen gardens and this has supplemented on sauce in the face of hunger and increased food prices, and we also sell the surplus to the neighbors."

Today is Blog Action Day, and the topic - climate change. As we take the time to blog - and exchange views - I hope each of one us also takes the time to call or write our Senators and urge them to take strong and immediate action to address climate change. Nothing we do could be more important right now. Our Senators need to hear from us. They need to hear that we care about the people in extreme poverty, who are least responsible for but are most vulnerable to climate change. More than one billion people already struggle on less than $1.25 a day and live on a razor's edge of crisis. Climate change threatens to push them over that edge.

This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcomittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection held a hearing on drought, flooding, and refugees and addressing the impacts of climate change in the world's most vulnerable nations. This hearing could not be more timely. Over recent weeks, CARE has been responding with humanitarian aid and supplies to an unusual number of simultaneous, mostly weather-related emergencies around the world. These emergencies include those in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Guatemala related to typhoons, severe droughts, floods and landslides. These significant emergencies illustrate the potential threat that experts have described of the increasing frequency and numbers of natural disasters, and they highlight the challenges we may face in the coming decades.

Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733 on September 30. This legislation is a critical step toward US leadership in tackling climate change. The bill that passed the House of Representatives in June was a great start; now it's up to the Senate. The Senate can show that the United States is ready and willing to tackle the threat of climate change by agreeing to stronger cuts in our own greenhouse gas emissions and by increasing support to help people in extreme poverty adapt to new climate conditions.

On December 7, representatives from 192 nations meet in Copenhagen and are expected to reach a global deal on climate change. There is no time to lose. Effectively addressing climate change requires a global response based on a shared sense of community. The US cannot do it alone but we can lead global efforts in this lifesaving movement. Please, let's call our Senators and ask for their support for strong US action to address climate change and provide robust resources to help the world's poorest adapt. This would show the world that the US is committed to leading efforts to address climate change and to creating a better future for all.

1. Up-front financing for capacity building at different level (community to policy makers) is necessary for effective readiness.
2. We are aware that REDD will not succeed unless local community meaningfully participate in the REDD process. However, our 60 % of CFs are below 50 ha in size. The national average of CFs  is around 86 ha. , and average CF allocation per household is around 0.7 ha, which is lower in low lands compared to hills and mountains. Realizing this fact, we are very much concerned on how Community forest s get maximum benefits from REDD. Considering high transaction costs on small size forests, there is potential risks that cheap carbon might off-set  community based forest carbon that have greater co-benefits.
3. Since, forest degradation is very much complex in nature; its measurement and monitoring is also challenging.
4. Almost one-third forests have already been under Protected Areas (PA’s) and more lands are in pipeline to be declared as PAs. Now, our major concern is- how Nepal can receive economic incentives for effective conservation of these PAs. So Nepal strongly advocates in favor of compensatory payments for co-benefits like ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation offered by our PAs and community forests to global community.
5. Local communities are overall responsible to manage the forest resources in Nepal. The forests and biodiversity that we have in present are the result of the community efforts and contributions.  Therefore, the community contributions and efforts on these regards should be    should be recognized and rewarded in the REDD process.