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Tag: Climate Crisis

  • Kenya joins global cities in pledge to combat extreme heat crisis

    Kenya joins global cities in pledge to combat extreme heat crisis

    A new global coalition of cities has pledged urgent, coordinated action to address one of the most dangerous impacts of the climate crisis – extreme heat.

    Announced  during the first day of the C40 World Mayors Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the Cool Cities Accelerator aims to help urban leaders protect residents, safeguard economies, and redesign cities for a hotter future.

    The initiative brings together 33 founding cities, representing more than 145 million people worldwide — including five African cities: Accra (Ghana), Durban (Ethekwini) and Tshwane (South Africa), Freetown (Sierra Leone), and Nairobi (Kenya).

    C40 established the Accelerator with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, alongside implementation partners such as the ClimateWorks Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Z Zurich Foundation, Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and IBM.

    Extreme heat is already the deadliest weather-related hazard globally, responsible for nearly half a million deaths each year. Without decisive action, the number of people exposed to life-threatening urban heat could increase fivefold by 2050.

    The Cool Cities Accelerator offers a science-based, practical framework for cities to take both immediate and long-term action. Participating cities will collaborate, share best practices, and issue progress reports focused on:

    Protecting residents now by strengthening early warning systems and ensuring access to cooling during emergencies within two years.

    Transforming cities for the future by improving building standards, expanding urban tree cover and shade, and future-proofing critical infrastructure within five years.

    “Extreme heat is no longer a distant threat — it’s a daily reality affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions around the world,” said Elizabeth Yee, Executive Vice President of The Rockefeller Foundation. “Through the Cool Cities Accelerator, we’re proud to support mayors who are investing in bold, science-based solutions to future-proof health systems.”

    C40 Cities Executive Director Mark Watts added: “Extreme heat is a silent killer and an increasingly urgent global threat. The number of days that major capitals experience temperatures above 35°C has increased 54% over the past twenty years. Cities are showing real leadership by taking practical steps to protect communities, safeguard economies, and create more liveable urban environments.”

    In support of the initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation is providing a grant of approximately USD 1 million to develop heat adaptation targets and provide technical assistance to cities implementing mitigation solutions.

    The Cool Cities Accelerator forms part of C40 Cities’ broader mission to promote bold, science-based climate action across the world’s most influential urban areas. By sharing strategies and scaling proven solutions, cities like Nairobi are joining a global movement to save lives, strengthen resilience, and build cooler, safer cities for generations to come.

  • The climate crisis is an education crisis

    The climate crisis is an education crisis

    In the lead up to the COP28 Climate Talks in Dubai, Education Cannot Wait Calls on Donors to Urgently Mobilize More Resources to Scale Up Life-Saving Access to Quality Education for Crisis-Impacted Children.

    “The one international language the world understands” wrote Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, “is the cry of a child,” and the evidence is accumulating that children are not only the innocent victims of conflict whose pleas need to be heard, but also the most vulnerable victims of climate change.  

    The climate crisis is an education crisis. Right here, right now, climate change is robbing millions of children and adolescents of their right to learn, their right to play and their right to feel safe and secure.

    In Pakistan deadly floods destroyed or damaged over 26,000 schools last year. This exposed over 600,000 adolescent girls to higher risks of school dropout, gender-based violence, and child marriage. In Ethiopia, girls like Mellion are going hungry and risk dropping out of school forever as a result of the ongoing drought.

    While the climate crisis threatens the rights of every person on the planet, those who are enduring the brunt of its impact are the most vulnerable girls and boys already living in protracted crises settings due to armed conflicts, forced displacement and other crises. For them and their communities, climate change is already a daunting reality that can mean the difference between life and death, between war and peace, between the chance to learn or not.

    Today, there are more than 224 million crisis-impacted children worldwide who urgently need education support. New analysis by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, hosted by UNICEF, has found that 62 million of these children have been impacted by climate hazards such as droughts, floods, cyclones and other extreme weather events since 2020. That’s close to the total populations of several G7 nations such as the United Kingdom, France or Italy.

    While these children have contributed least to the issue of climate change, they have the most to lose. Furthermore, over the last ten years, 31 million school-aged children have been displaced by the climate crisis, with 13 million in the last three years alone.

    The climate crisis poses a real and present threat to global security, economic prosperity and the very fabric of our societies. Climate impacts could cost the world economy US$7.9 trillion by 2050, according to the World Bank, and could force up to 216 million people to move within their own countries by 2050.

    Cyclones, typhoons, floods and droughts are increasing in severity and intensity. The number of disasters driven, in part, by climate change has increased five-fold in the past 50 years. Climate hazards are driving displacement directly, but also driving competition over scarce resources and threatening fragile peace in many parts of the world. Over 70% of refugees and internally displaced people on the move due to conflict and violence originally came from climate change hotspots. 

    Taken together, these intersecting crises of climate change, displacement and conflict are having a profound effect on education opportunities for millions of children and adolescents around the world.  

    As we look toward this year’s Climate Talks in Dubai (COP28) and the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, we must connect the dots between climate action and education action. It’s our investment in our people, our planet and our future.

    To rise to this challenge, ECW is calling on donors, the private sector and other key partners to urgently mobilize US$150 million in additional resources. This is an important contribution towards ECW’s overall resource mobilization target of US$1.5 billion toward the Fund’s 2023-2026 strategic plan.

    We all know that education has a sound return on investment. Long-term investments in human capital – including education, skills training and overall health and well-being – offer 10 times more return on investment than investments in physical capital. By investing in education today, we are investing in economic and social prosperity tomorrow, we are investing in an end to displacement and hunger, we are investing in a better world and children’s futures.

    The climate crisis threatens to end human civilization as we know it today. Now is our time to address this issue head on, and education plays a key role. By ensuring learning continuity for the most vulnerable children – and connecting quality education with climate action – we can equip an entire generation of climate stewards with the skills to adapt to the changing environment and pave the way to a better future.

    In the eye of the storm, we are calling on new and existing donors to stand with us. We are appealing to you to act: right here, right now. Will you take up this challenge?

    Views expressed in this article do not reflect the position of Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC)

    The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown is the UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Steering Group.

    Yasmine Sherif is the Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

  • Factory farms contribute at least 11pc of emissions causing climate disasters: report

    Factory farms contribute at least 11pc of emissions causing climate disasters: report

    World Animal Protection has Tuesday published research showing how cruel factory farming contributes at least 11% of the global greenhouse gases fuelling climate change. 

    The international charity’s How Factory Farming Emissions are Worsening Climate Disasters in the Global South report also details how intensive animal agriculture is impacting small-holder farming, which contributes to the livelihoods and food security of 1.7 billion people.

    The report finds the Global North’s factory farms are responsible for US$8.65 billion worth of damage across recent disasters in Africa, Asia and South America.

    By 2050, the economic costs associated with climate driven disasters globally could exceed US$1 trillion annually as the impacts of climate change intensify with factory farms liable for over US$100 billion of that cost.

    A resource-intensive business, factory farming releases a large proportion of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, worsening heat waves, wildfires, floods and droughts. Swathes of wild habitat are destroyed to plant crops for animal feed, killing wild species and releasing more carbon, and the journey from factory farm to dinner plate pumps around six trillion tons of emissions into the atmosphere.

    Billions of caged animals in factory farms are subjected to unimaginable cruelty. To stave off diseases which fester in the cramped conditions, they are dosed with antibiotics, fuelling the spike in antimicrobial resistance. Pigs, cattle and chickens are painfully mutilated and are bred to grow fast for profit, suffering debilitating injuries in the process.

    These unethical and unsustainable practices are perpetuated by the world’s biggest meat producers who are reaping record profits at the expense of vulnerable communities, animals and the environment. The world’s biggest meat producer, Brazil-based JBS – which is widely condemned for accelerating deforestation – recently announced a record $72.6 billion in global net revenue.

    Factory farming is set to surge in the Africa, driven by an expected 30% rise in meat demand. This will not only increase factory farming emissions and contribute to worsening climate related disasters – but also replace the sustainable, agroecological pastoralists and their diversified independent farming systems. African countries will have to spend US$53 billion annually by 2030 to adapt to the climate crisis, the report details.

    To address their significant culpability in climate change, World Animal Protection is calling for governments at COP28 to impose a 10-year moratorium on new factory farms and halt this flawed food system’s rapid global expansion.  It also calls for finance for adaptation and loss and damage to be directed towards smallholder farmers in the developing world.

    Tennyson Williams, Director for Africa at World Animal Protection, said:“As our report details, animal cruelty and climate change are interlinked. Until we get rid of animal cruelty in farming, climate change will worsen. Factory farming poses a core obstacle in achieving the targets laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement and casts a dark shadow over the prospect of a climate-safe future.

    “Factory farming not only causes suffering to billions of animals and the destruction of wild habitats. It is undermining food security for communities around the world. Land that could be used to grow crops for humans or to protect wildlife is instead used to plant crops to feed factory farmed animals. It’s simply a wasteful, destructive food chain.”

    Dr Victor Yamo, World Animal Protection’s Humane and Sustainable Agriculture Campaigns Manager, said:“World leaders must act meaningfully at COP28.The factory farming industry must be held accountable by governments and finance must be directed to the Global South communities on the front line of climate change.

    “COP28 must take action to shore up a humane and sustainable food supply, with governments withdrawing subsidies for industrial meat and dairy and redirecting them to plant-based foods in ways that support small scale farmers. Animals remaining on factory farms should be spared the worst forms of suffering.”

    Source: Release