Building climate resilient societies through empowerment of women

Participants at the UN Women Multi-Country Office Workshop.
Photo courtesy of UN Women Africa

The South Africa Multi-Country Office (MCO) of UN Women recently hosted a workshop on ‘Building climate resilient societies: Strategies towards a gender responsive climate change agenda’, 18-20 May, 2016. The purpose of the work is to strengthen women’s voices to advocate for gender sensitive climate agreements, national adaptation plans and regional frameworks as well as furthering the outcomes of the International Climate Change process by collectively advancing the gender and climate agenda with partners in civil society and government.

Cath Traynor, from Natural Justice’s Climate Change Programme participated in the workshop which included members from civil society, the media and small holder women farmers from South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. The first day focused on setting the scene and Ms Anne Githuku-Shongwe, UN Women Representative shared that the UN team was meeting to discuss the current El Niño phenomena and climate change, and indeed days later the UN General-Secretary, Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of 2 Special Envoys on El Niño and Climate. Ms. Githuku-Shongwe shared the UN Women focus areas in the region which include renewable energy, livelihood issues including HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence and women’s political representation, and the need for gender-responsive budgeting. Ms, Ayanda Mvimbi, Programme Specialist UN Women South Africa MCO, then introduced an overview of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the role of women as change agents, she summarised pivotal gains for women as well as key issues such as adequate representation of women and gender in different strategic frameworks relating to climate change, gender mainstreaming, and key opportunities for engagement.

Participants finalizing the declaration

During the workshop rural women then shared the impact of climate change and their agency, and commission groups discussed key questions and emerging themes. Rural women smallholders shared challenges regards access to land and resources and energy, that the burden of the loss of livelihoods through climate change is falling on women, their concern that several Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries have declared national drought emergencies, that rural women are excluded from decision-making processes, and that the issue of climate change on rural women smallholders requires urgent attention. A ‘declaration by rural women, smallholder farmers organisations and supporting civil society and media in the southern Africa region’ was produced, which highlighted women’s concerns, urged Heads of States and governments at the next SADC Summit in August 2016 to listen to the voice of women, implement existing commitments and policies of international and regional conventions that are pro rural smallholders and gender equity, to ensure that under the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are ambitious and address gender inequality, and for the full and effective participation of rural women smallholders in policy making, implementation and monitoring processes. Action on land ownership by women, food sovereignty, support and legal protection for indigenous knowledge systems and knowledge holders rights, the right to water, and the provision of transparent information on climate, services and rights, amongst others, was also called for.

UN Women Representative, Ms Anne
Githuku-Shongwe receives the
declaration and states she will
ensure it reaches the relevant
stakeholders

Less than a week after the workshop the SADC Secretariat established a ‘Regional El-Niño Response Team’, SADC noted that “At least 27 million people, translating to about 9 per cent of the SADC’s 293 million population, are already affected by the current disaster and this figure is likely to increase” and that the 2015/2016 El Niño phenomenon is affecting livelihoods and the quality lives of especially women. The Response Team will prepare a regional drought appeal with the aim to mobilise resources to meet the needs of people requiring humanitarian support in the Region.

Intern Lorna Born reflects on Participatory Action Reserach with the Nama Community in the Richtersveld, South Africa

We left Cape Town early on Monday morning, driving northerly while the sun drifted over us, settling down in the west as we stopped for the night in Springbok. After an interview in the morning with municipality officials from the Richtersveld Municipality, we continued our driving to arrive in the afternoon in Kuboes where we met up with our community guide, Gerren. We soon discovered that time moves differently in the desert and we found ourselves adjusting to a new clock. This clock didn’t have numbers but rather activities. Sunlight dictated waking hours and insects directed when we could sleep. Our chalet was located right on the bank of the Orange River and the lush green that crowded the banks contrasted starkly with the expansive desert that surrounded us.

It proved pretty tough to track down some of the pastoralists as their lifestyles involve moving around the desert and grazing their stock. Stock posts showed where they’d settle own for the night but the day involved constant movement. We drove around bumpy, rocky roads just outside the Richtersveld Transfrontier Park searching for pastoralists, usually sticking near to the river as vegetation was densest here. We completed several interviews with Gerren, who organized the meet ups by gathering information on where the pastoralists might possibly be and by being our translator. For most of the interviews, we sat on chairs under the trees or scattered around a fire with a potjie in it. One interview took place in a house in Kuboes – a small town within the Richtersveld World Heritage Site. We were welcomed into homes and stock posts and the interviews were carried out without a hitch and before we knew it, our time in the Richtersveld was over.

We drove to Port Nolloth on Friday afternoon to stay the night after our interview in Kuboes. Mercifully, we arrived in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon and thus had time to readjust our internal clocks to cope with traffic, slog and being indoors. 

This blog is the personal views of Lorna Born. Lorna successfully completed a two-month voluntary internship with the Climate Change Program at Natural Justice, she has a Bachelors degree in Marine Biology and Environmental and Geographical Sciences from the University of Cape Town.

International Fellow, Luchino Ferraris reflects on his internship with Natural Justice

My four-month internship period at Natural Justice (from January to the end of April 2016) was not just a high level professional training, but also an unforgettable life experience.

With an elegant office situated at the sixth floor of the prestigious “Mercantile Building” – one of the most traditional and well-preserved buildings in Cape Town, located at the heart of the Central Business District (CBD) – Natural Justice is a team of professional and committed people primarily fighting for indigenous peoples’ rights on a national and a global scale and drawing on a wide array of tools (legal, political, scientific) to reach this aim.

If anybody reading this post has in mind the cliché of the intern making photocopies twelve hours a day, please forget about it and keep on reading. On the contrary, the team immediately welcomes you and makes you feel involved in its projects, always giving you the possibility to have a say in the organization and encouraging you to adopt a personal and critical view at every stage of the work.

Thanks to my legal background - and particularly in international and environmental law, acquired during my undergraduate in “Law” at the University of Milan and in the master (LLM) “Global Environment and Climate Change Law” at the University of Edinburgh - I focused on numerous legal and political-related issues such as the research and drafting of a working paper on the outcomes of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the drafting of a policy brief on the Right to Food and Food Security in Southern Africa and at international level, the elaboration of strategies to defend indigenous peoples’ rights at judicial level and the development of plans to raise awareness on the protection of traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights.

The carrying out of such tasks is reflected in my dynamic daily life at the office which involved desktop research, team meetings, interviews with other researchers and politicians, as well as the participation in workshops, conferences and the frequent contact with the teaching staff of the University of Cape Town (UCT). On this point, the one-week field work we conducted in the Richtersveld desert (Northern Cape) with the Nama community definitely deserves a special mention.

On a personal note, I wish to stress the serious, transparent and respectful attitude of the whole team, with whom I undertook not only a professional, but also a human relationship. I therefore strongly recommend such an experience to everyone who wishes to undertake a highly professionalizing experience and to spend a magnificent period in the gorgeous Cape Town.

Post by Luchino Ferraris.

African Civil Society Engages the 6th Special Session of AMCEN

Natural Justice joined the ‘Pre-AMCEN African Post Paris/UNEP MGSF Consultative Workshop’ held in Cairo, 15^th April 2016. The workshop was organised and hosted by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), and CSO representatives from across Africa met to deliberate on key issues on the agenda of the 6^th African Ministers Conference on the Environment (AMCEN). The aim of the workshop was to reflect on the COP21 outcomes, the Sustainable Development goals and plan for the 2^nd United Nations Environmental Assembly scheduled for 23-27^th May 2016, Nairobi, Kenya.

The UNFCCC Paris Climate Agreement was analysed and Natural Justice’s Dr. Cath Traynor joined a panel presentation on the agreement and discussed the implications of the mitigation decisions for Africa, other issues covered included adaptation, finance, gender, and technology transfer.

The following day a consultative workshop was held on ‘Energy Transformation and Access’, participants discussed the African Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI), which aims to enable the installation of large-scale renewable energy capacity on the African continent by 2020. Speakers shared post-Paris discussions on renewable energy, and what the initiative could mean in practical terms for Africa, breakout groups discussed how energy transformation and access could be accelerated in Africa.

Ms. Hindou Oumarou (PACJA Executive Committee), Representative for Hon. Dr. Khaled Fahmy (AMCEN Chair/Minister for Environment, Egypt), & Mr. Mithika Mwenda (PACJA Secretary General)

Representatives from both workshops drafted key messages for AMCEN, these included calling on their governments to play a leading role in the forthcoming April 22 UN Paris Agreement Signing in New York, to compel developed countries to sign and ratify the Agreement, to fulfill their commitments and indeed to raise their Nationally Determined Contributions ambition so that the collective goal of limiting temperature increases to 1.5^oC above pre-industrial levels can be achieved. They also called for their governments to translate the provisions of the Agreement and other AU resolutions into domestic laws, policies, structures and development strategies. Regards to AREI, they called for comprehensive safeguards, the involvement of local communities in the energy transition, and for decentralized energy. Mr. Mithika Mwenda, Secretary General of PACJA presented the collective message on the first day of AMCEN.

During AMCEN Ministers reaffirmed that adaptation to climate change is a priority for Africa, they highlighted the need for adequate support for implementation of adaptation measures, and that developed countries must adhere to their pre-2020 commitments in the Paris Agreement.

Natural Justice has produced a Working Paper ‘The Binding Nature of the 2015 Paris Agreement and Outcomes for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ – please email cath.at.naturaljustice.org.za for a copy.

OUTCOMES FROM THE CIVIL SOCIETY MEETING: Debrief on COP21 and reporting on activities of the Policy and the Communications Working Group

The first of the two CSO Debriefs on COP 21 organized by the Organization “Project 90 by 2030” was convened on the 8^th of March in Cape Town. The participants were representatives of a great deal of non-governmental organizations and observers of climate negotiations.  The purposes of this workshop, like its corresponding follow up in Johannesburg scheduled on the 11^th of March, are numerous:

 Report back from the ad-hoc working groups: policy and communications;

• Exchange Knowledge and viewpoints on COP 21 outcomes and implications for South Africa;
• Review of civil societies red lines for COP 21 and identify key messages for year ahead;
• Identify civil society events and actions around international and national climate change policy in 2016;
• Develop a joint press release: what a coalition of civil society is expecting from South Africa in light of the Paris agreement;

In this connection, the meeting started with the presentation by Jaco du Toit (WWF South Africa) on the outcomes of the Paris Agreement, particularly stressing the implications of the bottom-up approach endorsed by the Parties and its reflections on the text of the Agreement. As a result, it was shown that an additional effort seems to be required to attain the global goal of 2° C of temperature increase. The pledges currently submitted by the Parties are supposed to restrain the increase of global temperature by 3.5° C - whereas the absence of any action inspired by the business-as-usual approach would lead to an increase by 4.5° C.

The intervention by Happy Khambule (Policy and Research Coordinator of Project 90 by 2030 and co-organizer of the meeting) focused on a review of the Civil Society Red-Lines, striking a balance with the last meeting in November 2015. Such Red-Lines are a set of “non-negotiables” agreed by a great deal of NGOs and enshrined in a document submitted to the South African Government prior to COP21. Their purpose is to drive and influence South African policy vis-à-vis climate change, pushing for climate-smart and sustainable choices.

In the last part of the meeting, participants were encouraged to talk and discuss, finding a common positions regards South Africa’s response to climate change, both in the national and in the international arena. Consensus was reached that there are 6 main priorities to work on in order to improve the existing framework:

• Revision of South African Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs): These can be improved upon so that South Africa takes the lead in the fight against climate change, by setting and pursuing more ambitious targets;
• Civil Society Organization (CSO) strengthening: public participation in climate-related matters is to be improved, particularly by studying strategic alliances with enterprises. The proposal was raised to set up frequent climate change meetings on a regular basis;
• Stronger engagement in CODESA, a forum in which a great variety of South African stakeholders gather in order to deeply discuss climate issues.
• Avoid double counting: the Paris Agreement bans double counting on several occasions in the final draft. However, there are the gaps and the weaknesses in the enforcement of this rule, as to date no mechanism has been put in place yet. As a result – also due to the complexity of the topic – there are still many ways by which countries may circumvent this obstacle and few are the institutional mechanisms to denounce and stop such unlawful practices. Possible ways forward include the institution of a national register grouping together every single mitigation project and/or the parallel standardization of accounting rules;
• Signature of the Agreement: South Africa is encouraged to take this step before the deadline of April 2017.

Brief by Luchino Ferraris - International Fellow at Natural Justice.

UN Climate Change COP21 Side Event: Monday 7th December 2015

 

When: Monday 7 December, 15:00 – 16:30 hrs

Where: COP21/CMP11, Parc des Expositions, Le Bourget conference site, side event room - OR 03

This event will share a variety of recent research concerning:

• Supporting the adaptation practices and traditional knowledge (TK) of Indigenous peoples and local communities, and the importance of biocultural heritage.
•  The protection of knowledge holders and the sharing of TK in adaptation initiatives.
•  The role of community protocols as a tool to reach the most vulnerable communities through participation and biodiversity legislation.
•  The quantity and quality of adaptation finance reaching those most in need.

Who: Dr. Hannah Reid, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Ms. Krystyna Swiderska, (IIED), Mr. Alejandro Argumedo (ANDES), Peru & Dr. Yiching Song (Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Science)

Dr. Cath Traynor (Natural Justice) & Mr. Reino Le Fleur (Griqua representative)

Ms. Roberta Ramos, Grupo de Trabalho Amazonico (GTA), & Munduruku representative

Dr. Carlos Potiatra Castro, University of Brasilia

Mr. Delfin Ganapin, UNDP-GEF Small Grants Programme

You are invited to find out more at this side event. Light snacks will be served at 14.45 hrs.

UN calls for Human Rights to be promoted in Climate Change Negotiations

A Group of Experts has written an open letter to all Governments involved in the current round of climate negotiations, asserting that climate change interferes with the enjoyment of human rights recognised and protected by international law. The calls came ahead of the meeting in Bonn (20-25 October) of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, to discuss the application of the Climate Change Convention principles, as well as measures for mitigation of, and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. The experts have underscored the need for urgency in addressing this topic due to the approaching deadlines for the climate negotiations to reach a concrete solution. Following the ADP meeting in Bonn, the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC meets this December in Lima (COP 20), with the goal of adopting a new legal instrument at its next meeting, in Paris in December 2015 (COP 21).

UN Climate Summit: A New Approach for Agriculture and Forests? New BENELEX Blog

As global carbon dioxide emissions reportedly reached new highs, representatives from hundreds of national and subnational governments, companies, and civil society organizations gathered in New York for the Climate Summit convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 23 September 2014. The summit was intended to raise political momentum towards the adoption of a new climate agreement in 2015 and seemingly managed to infuse climate diplomacy with fresh energy.

Several States announced national actions to address climate change, as well as increased contributions to climate finance, most notably China and the European Union. The summit furthermore saw a host of multilateral and multi-stakeholder announcements on actions to address climate change clustered around eight themes: agriculture; cities; energy; financing; forests; industry; resilience; and transportation. For the purposes of BENELEX, the most interesting developments were the adoption of the New York Declaration on Forests and the launch of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture. Read complete blog post by Annalisa Savaresi from the BENELEX Project of the University of Edinburgh here.

Indigenous Peoples on the frontline of biggest ever People's Climate March

More than 400,000 people marched peacefully on Sunday 21st September in New York City in anticipation of the upcoming Climate Summit, taking place on 23rd September 2014 during this year's UN General Assembly. Indigenous Peoples jointly with other affected communities were at the forefront of the march that stretched across Manhattan. It was the biggest ever climate march in history and a celebration of different cultures and communities joining forcing in calling governments to action in addressing global climate change. 

Indigenous peoples were particularly well-represented due to the first-ever World Conference on Indigenous Peoples  (WCIP) at the UN, taking place on 22nd and 23rd of September. The conference, which saw the adoption of the Outcome Document by country delegations attending the UN General Assembly, constitutes the highest level commitment to indigenous peoples' rights since the adoption of the United Nations Declarationon Indigenous Peoples. 

New RRI Report on Recognizing Community Land Rights

Rights and Resources Initiative has announced the release of their latest report Recognizing Indigenous and Community Land Rights: Priority Steps to Advance Development and Mitigate Climate Change. This report demonstrates how recognising community land rights is a cost-effective way to address a host of social, environmental, and development challenges.

Prepared with Tebtebba, the report reveals that US$1.64 billion -- the funds already pledged by three multilateral initiatives to developing the REDD+ carbon market -- would expand the recognition of land rights for local communities and Indigenous Peoples living on 450 million hectares, an area almost half the size of Europe. These cost estimates provide a benchmark for future climate change research and policy work as international negotiations to address greenhouse gas emissions heat up.

Seventh Session of EMRIP Wraps Up in Geneva

Joseph Itongwa, presenting at the NJ-ICCA

Consortium side event on access to justice

The 7th Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP-7) took place from 7-11 July 2014 at the UN Headquarters (Palais des Nations) in Geneva. This session included a continuation of last year’s thematic study on access to justice, with a focus on Indigenous women, children, and persons with disabilities, as well as a new thematic study on disaster risk reduction. Natural Justice also co-hosted a lunch-time event with the ICCA Consortium on Monday 7 July. Overall, two key points of particular importance were: a) the multiple references to environmental issues (a notable shift over the past few sessions of EMRIP), and b) a more nuanced look at the special rights and types of marginalisation of groups within Indigenous peoples (women, youth and children, and persons with disabilities).

The Session saw a turnover in the Experts, with a new expert for the Asian region (Mr. Edtami Mansayagan from the Philippines) beginning his three-year term. The zero draft of the outcome document for the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples created much discussion, while the continuation of the study on access to justice raised a number of issues concerning Indigenous peoples' lands, territories and resources as well as reconciliatory and transformative justice.

When the draft study on disaster risk reduction was being considered, Natural Justice and the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) made a joint statement, presented by Joseph Itongwa, on on climate change and vulnerability, traditional knowledge systems, customary tenure rights and legal recognition and support for customary natural resource governance, and the role of territory-based systems of natural resource governance and conservation in climate change mitigation and adaptation and prevention of disasters. Several suggestions were taken on board in the revised version of the study and the Expert Mechanism Advice No. 7 contained therein, which is expected to be adopted at the next Human Rights Council session in September 2014.

New Report on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Forests and Climate Policies in Guyana

The Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) and the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) have published a new special report entitled ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Forests And Climate Policies In Guyana: A Special Report'. The report, edited by Kate Dooley and Tom Griffiths, highlights the vital need for good land tenure governance in the development of sustainable forest and climate initiatives.

One for the key findings, based on detailed fieldwork, is  that insecure land rights and gaps in national legal frameworks as they relate to indigenous peoples’ rights are a major obstacle to the effective and efficient implementation of national land use and climate policies in Guyana.

The authors call  for timely reforms and strengthening of national laws and policies to ensure proper protections for customary land rights and adherence to the core standard of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).

The report also underlines the pressing need for robust measures by bilateral and multilateral international agencies to ensure compliance with their own safeguard policies in ongoing forest governance, livelihood, infrastructure, energy and climate programmes.

Warsaw Climate Change Conference

The 19th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change takes place in Warsaw, Poland from 11-22 November 2013. Parties to the convention will continue to negotiate a new global climate agreement, which they intend to adopt in 2015 and implement no later than 2020. The Convention aims to keep global temperature rise below the critical 2oC threshold. The talks take place amid increasing evidence of rising greenhouse gas emissions and climate change and the need for urgent action: 

• The World Meteorological Organisation recently reported that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached new highs in 2012, and an upward and accelerating trend is continuing which is driving climate change. 
• In the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Fifth Assessment Report: The Physical Science Basis, it was shown that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and that limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists calculated a carbon budget and revealed that nearly half of all the carbon dioxide that can be safely emitted without raising temperatures above a dangerous 2oC had already been emitted by 2011, and the entire budget could be used up by 2040. 

Ensuring Climate Finance Effectiveness in Africa

Kulthoum Omari, Heinrich Boell Foundation

From 21-23 May, Cath Traynor (Natural Justice Associate) participated in the “Ensuring Climate Finance Effectiveness in Africa” workshop in Magaliesburg, South Africa, organised by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Pan African Justice Alliance, and Transparency International Kenya. The workshop provided a platform for civil society actors and other stakeholders in the region to share experiences, strategies and tools and improved the capacity of participants to play a more active role in the governance of climate finance on the African continent.

Participants discussed the importance of civil society influencing effective policy development, and exerting their watchdog role in the monitoring and implementation of climate finance. Experiences of monitoring national climate finance governance were shared from Kenya, Senegal and Zambia, amongst others. Relevant tools for capacity building and mechanisms for monitoring and oversight were discussed. Key issues raised included:

• Applying lessons learned from finance monitoring in similar spheres, for example, Overseas Development Aid;
• Opportunities for civil society organisations to influence climate finance have increased in recent years, however, advocacy is required to enhance and broaden these spaces and create new ones;

Apply for Global Environments Summer Academy - 2013

Via www.global-diversity.org

The third Global Environments Summer Academy (GESA) on Socio-ecological Interactions in a Dynamic World will be held from 27 July – 18 August, 2013 at the Centre for Development and the Environment at the University of Bern. This year's academy will focus on the human dimensions of global environmental change, ranging from adaptive community management to planetary processes. The academy has been organised by the Global Diversity Foundation, in partnership with the Rachel Carson Center, since 2011. 

Organisers are seeking applications from students in the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences – as well as from professionals already working in advocacy, law, media or policy – who focus on the relationship between environment and society. 

According to GESA’s description, “every year the course focuses on different themes within the broad concern of human dimensions of global environmental change. The course spans local to global scales and diverse ecosystems, exploring the most critical contemporary environmental issues from multiple perspectives including biocultural diversity, environmental history, political ecology, sustainability studies and personal activism.” 

More details about course content, financial information and registration can be found here. Applications to GESA should be submitted here before 15 January, 2013.