Busisiwe Ndlela

Busisiwe Ndlela was radiant when I met her yesterday. Just this month, and with money she earned selling tiny trees, she has bought a new cupboard and an electric stove and she is proud as can be.

I met this 60-year old mother of seven on the outskirts of Durban, South Africa where she and hundreds of other women are helping to transform their communities and the landscape around them, one seed at a time.

Welcome to the Buffelsdraai landfill site, operated by the eThekwini (Durban) municipality. Under law there must be a buffer zone between it and local residents, and until recently this was occupied by fields of sugar cane.

“Sugar cane did nothing for us,” says Busisiwe when I ask her about life before the tree-planting project began. “It was for them [white farmers], not us.”

This all changed in 2008, when the municipality began to work with local people to turn this 800-hectare area into a mosaic of native grasses and rich forest, to help offset the carbon emissions associated with South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup.

As the new trees mature over the next 20 years, they will absorb 48,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide — about the same amount produced by 25,000 passengers flying from Northern Europe to South Africa and back again.

As well as helping to limit climate change, the project aims to protect wild nature, improve water quality downstream and create new livelihoods for poor local communities.

It is a simple idea, and it revolves around jobless local people like Busisiwe becoming ‘tree-preneurs’.

First, they collect seeds of native tree species and then they plant them at home in old bottles, plastic bags and other containers. Once the trees reach a certain height the tree-preneurs can sell them to the municipality, which then grows them up a bit more in a nursery before planting them in the buffer zone.

So far more than 600 people have got involved — 80 percent of them women — and they have sold a quarter of a million baby trees, including acacias and several species of wild fig trees.

A 30-centimetre tall tree is worth five rand but if a tree-preneur tends it a little longer and it reaches a metre in height, she can sell it for ten rand (US$1.25). In reality, this is a cashless project. Instead the tree-preneurs receive vouchers that they can exchange for things like food, building materials and school fees for their children’s education.

Since 2008, Busisiwe has sold about 1,200 trees and — depending on their height — this will have earned her vouchers worth between US$750 and US$1500. In a part of the world with 80 percent unemployment, few opportunities and a minimum wage of under a dollar an hour, this income is not to be sniffed at.

The star seed planter though is Ningi Gcabashe. She has sold 15,000 trees to the project and now works as a facilitator, teaching other members of the community about native tree species and how to grow them from seed.

“When the project came to Buffelsdraai, I never realised it would help the community,” said Ningi yesterday, before explaining that she has been able to build a new home using bricks she brought with vouchers from the trees.

“My life improved,” she said. “Before the project I never touched a car. Now I have paid for driving lessons.”

Today she manages the Trees for Life programme of the Wildlands Conservation Trust, the organisation that runs the reforestation at Buffelsdraai. This is just one of several full-time jobs the project has created.

There is temporary work too, especially at this rainy time of year when around 60 communities members are paid to plant trees.

And in a couple of years when the job is complete and 500 hectares of forest have been replanted, new opportunities will spring up.

“After the canopy is planted there will be enrichment plantings, i.e. planting in the understory to increase the biodiversity in the forest,” says Sean O’Donoghue of the eThekwini municipality’s environmental planning and climate protection department.

“Thereafter we’re hoping to create jobs with regards maintaining the forest,” he says. “There will also be waste-preneur opportunities — collection of recyclable waste and selling back to us. And we hope to stimulate eco-tourism in the buffer zone, for example mountain bike tracks.”

The idea is that these activities can form the basis of sustainable businesses and long-term employment for the surrounding communities.

In time, the forest can bring many new benefits but women like Busisiwe and Ningi are already gaining from the greening. “People did not believe,” says Ningi. “Now they do.”

This story originally appeared at Mike Shanahan’s blog — Under the Banyan

When Indonesia pledged two years ago to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 26% by 2020, the focus was on forests. And while efforts to reduce deforestation will play a big role in reaching the target, cities are also major sources of emissions.

To date though, there has been little action in the urban centres that are home to half of Indonesia’s population and are themselves highly vulnerable to climate change.

That is set to change as the Ministry of Public Works has called on cities to reduce emissions and adopt green development plans with three main elements: planning and design, increasing the number of green open spaces, and empowering communities.

According to Budi Situmorang, the ministry’s deputy director of national spatial development planning, 60 cities will enact such plans in 2012 and 2013.

Experts warn however that continued reliance on private vehicles could create many ‘new Jakartas’ — cities with poor public transport systems and high levels of pollution.

Avoiding the Jakarta model

The number of cities in Indonesia is increasing — from 45 in 1970 to 98 by 2010 — and many aim to emulate the prosperity of the capital Jakarta.

But Jakarta itself is an inefficient city, from the way it consumes energy and water, to its unresolved waste management challenges.

Its transport system was developed independently of urban planning, and so people there rely heavily on private vehicles. Two-hour traffic jams are a daily occurrence.

Indonesia’s green city initiatives were developed so other cities would avoid the ‘Jakarta model’. As well as planting trees and creating new green spaces, the cities will improve waste management, increase efficiency in water and energy use, and integrate transportation systems into city planning.

But green transportation will not be planned until 2020, and only implemented five year later. Until then, the gap between urban planning and transport will remain.

Why the gap?

Asked why planning and transportation were not being integrated sooner, Budi Situmorang said: “We will not use the conventional transport that we see at the moment. Green transportation is not only a matter of energy efficiency, but of developing fossil fuels with lower emissions.”

His Ministry expects that within 13 years, the private sector will develop the low-emission fossil fuels or a green transportation system that can be adopted by Indonesian cities.

John Christensen, head of the UNEP Risoe Centre on Energy, Climate and Sustainable Development says that local governments should show political will to create low carbon cities by investing more in public transportation.

He warns that cities that fail to integrate urban planning and transportation systems will end up with public transport systems that cannot meet people’s needs for comfort and speed. In this situation, people eventually revert to using private vehicles and this, says Christensen, turns cities into major sources of greenhouse gases.

Stefan Schurig, climate and energy director for the World Future Council, agrees. He says that one of the most important ways to reduce emissions in cities is to think of new, creative ways to change consumption patterns of transportation.

Speaking last week at the UN climate change conference in Durban, he said that promoting public transportation is one way of doing it.

But, most importantly, he says, it is the local government’s political decision that has the ultimate power to determine how a city’s population will efficiently move from one place to another.

It is estimated that the COP 17, taking place here from November 28^th to December 9^th, will emit approximately 76.919 tons of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere, according to the Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa. This calculation is based on the estimated 25,000 delegates , NGO members and other visitors attending the COP.

International flights will have the largest impact on the overall carbon footprint. Other items took into account are: accommodation, electricity and water expenditures, food and information packs.

However, delegates and visitors will be able to reduce their carbon emissions through a voluntary offset mechanism called CEBA (Community Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Initiative), by buying carbon credits at www.durbanceba.org . Each credit costs 100 Rands (approximately USD12).

The funds will be used to support more than 42 initiatives hold by the eThtekwini Municipality, to which the city of Durban belongs. One of these projects is the Buffersdraai Landfill Reforestation Plan. It involves the community by providing them with skills to collect seeds from local tree species, grow them, and then resell them to the government. “Tree-preneurs” get from 5 to 10 Rands for each small tree, depending on its size, in credits to buy food, school stuff or building materials.

“My life improved after I joined this plantation program in 2008”, said Ziningi, mother of five children, who lives in the surroundings of Durban. “At the beginning, people didn’t believe they could get paid on that, but I began planting trees and that helped me not only to buy food, but also bricks for my house, and to pay for my driver’s license,” said Ziningi. Now she drives the bus that gets people to the tree nursery of the program, and she is a coach for other participants of the project.

Tree seedlings take several months to grow, and each producer can grow as many trees as he or she (most of them are women) has room at home. The goal of the program is to reforest land destroyed or converted to sugar cane plantations. The new forest is aimed at mitigating climate change in the city and providing job opportunities.

This project began in 2008 as part of the “Greening Durban Program,” to offset the 2010 soccer World Cup’s  carbon footprint.  Until today, the Municipalityhas  invested 13 million rand.

Other projects focus on adaptation to climate change, such as the Durban Central Beach Front Dune Rehabilitation. “The objective is to protect dunes and sand in the coastal zone”, explained Sean O’ Donoghue, climate protection manager at eThekwini Municipality. Dunes are important to manage wind-blown sand, and to protect the beaches and the infrastructure of this very touristic city. The municipality invested 6 million Rands to launch it.

The money would also fund research in smallholder production systems and markets, management and conservation of forest and tree resources, landscape management of forested areas for environmental services, biodiversity conservation and livelihoods, and impacts of trade and investment on forests and people.

Launching the programme on Dec. 4 during CIFOR’s fifth annual Forest Day, part of the on-going climate change conference here, Vice President of Sustainable Development at the World Bank, Rachel Kyte, said that the research programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry aims to revamp efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation and expand the use of trees on farms. The programme is the brainchild of a consortium of world renowned agricultural research institutions under the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), including the Forest Day organizers, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

“The initiative focuses on the critical importance of forests as natural ‘carbon sinks’ that can help slow the pace of climate change and the need to conserve forest biodiversity,” she said, adding that improved management of forests and trees can play a wider role in reducing risks for smallholder farmers and improving the wellbeing of forest- dependent communities, particularly women and disadvantaged groups.

Already, USD90 million has been raised for the programme while the rest would be secured through fund-raising activities.

The programme comes at a time when deforestation and forest degradation are accelerating climate change and threatening the wellbeing of millions of poor people around the world.

“Under these circumstances, we urgently need a strong  and sustained effort focusing on forest management and governance, given the crucial role of forests in confronting some of the most important challenges of our time: climate change, poverty and food security,” said Frances Seymour, CIFOR director general. She added that without addressing deforestation and forest degradation, the world risks the further impoverishment of millions of poor people who depend on forests and trees for their livelihoods.

“On the other hand we will continue to witness continued carbon emissions from forest destruction and degradation that are a significant source of greenhouse gases, and loss of ecosystem services crucial to sustained agricultural activity,” she stressed.

Implementation of the programme will involve the collaboration of four of the world’s leading research centers. They are the Kenya- based World Agroforestry Centre, CIFOR based in Indonesia, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) based in Colombia and Biodiversity International in Italy.  “These will be the focal points of project implementation but  we will work with universities and research institutions  in the various countries when it comes to the practical implementation of the project,” Kyte told CCMP fellows in a separate interview.

In Tanzania, The University of Dar es Salaam through the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) has been conducting various researches on adaptation and mitigation particularly for small farmers in the rural communities. The Sokoine University of Agriculture based in Morogoro , Tanzania has also been conducting research in these areas, also involving the rural poor in their activities. These two universities are likely to benefit most from the programme.

Asked on the dissemination of the findings, the CGIAR Chair explained that information on research findings would be timely disseminated. “Our aim is to help communities cope with effects of climate change. This means once we get findings we will disseminate them so that they are put into use by small farmers, so that they may take adaptation measure and reduce poverty,” she said.

Presenting the results of a case study on implementation of ecosystem adaption in the rural communities of western Tanzania, Dr Elizabeth Gray from The Nature Conservancy said that many communities in Tanzania have adequate information on climate change, “but their efforts to adapt are hampered by lack of accurate data and finance.”

By limiting our meat eating, we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water consumption. This is the main goal of the Vegetarian Movement (Vegan), one of the thousands of non-governmental organizations attending the 17^th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 17) , which is entering its second week.

COP 17 is taking place from 28^th November to 9^th December, bringing together delegates from 195 countries inside the International Conventions Center (ICC), as well as representatives of civil society movements that raise their voices in alternative forums outside the walls of the ICC.

Livestock generates 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions – more than the world transportation sector- according to reports by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This multilateral organization was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to assess the science on climate change and its environmental and socio-economic impacts.

According to research published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a meat diet requires 17 times as much land, 14 as much water and 10 times as much energy than a vegetarian one. “Replacing livestock products not only can achieve quick reductions in atmospheric GHGs, but can also reverse the ongoing world food and water scarcity,” says a report from the Worldwatch Institute.

By stopping (or reducing) meat production, we can preserve 70 per cent clean water, and save up to 70 per cent of the Amazon rainforest from clearance for animal grazing, according to the Center for the International Forests Research. Besides that, it could free up to 3.5 million hectares of land annually, and consume 2/3 less fossil fuel than those used for meat production, and reduce pollution from untreated animal waste.

Talking about climate finances — a major sticking point in the ongoing climate talks — scientists in the Netherlands found that of the estimated USD 40 trillion needed to stop global warming, almost 80% of this amount would be saved with a vegan diet. That’s a saving of USD 32 trillion for the simple step of turning away from the meat to a plant-based diet.

There is something we can do to mitigate climate change, and we can do it now, activists say.

While the most vulnerable countries such as small island states urged an urgent decision on a binding deal, some of the world’s biggest economies and polluters are pressing for more time to reach a decision. The United States has suggested the year 2020 as the earliest a deal could be reached. It argues that by that time climate change would not have reached dangerous levels and mankind would still be able to take control of the situation.

Supporting this stand is Canada, whose representative acknowledges the urgency of the problem but does not see the urgency of its solution. “There is urgency to this problem. We don’t need a binding convention. What we need is action and a mandate to work on an eventual binding convention,” Peter Kent, Canadian Environment Minister told the media during the UN talks first week.

This stand drew a strong protest from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which says it will not accept a proposal that delays any new binding agreement or more ambitious emissions reductions until 2020. The island states believe that these outcomes cannot safeguard the livelihoods and guarantee their survival , hence their demand for urgency for an agreement.

Ambassador Dessima Williams, Permanent Representative of Grenada to the United Nations and Chair of AOSIS cautioned that if Durban puts off a legally binding agreement and closes the door on raising targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions before 2020 many small island states will be severely threatened.

“AOSIS is calling on the Durban conference to deliver agreement on a second five-year commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, a process to rapidly ramp up mitigation ambition, and a mandate to quickly conclude a new parallel legal agreement in 2012 to cover those not bound by the Kyoto Protocol,” she said.

The world’s biggest emitters, China and the United States, are not bound by Kyoto. The European Union said its willing to commit to five more years of commitment to the Protocol, but argues that it would be no cause to celebrate. With less than 15 percent of emissions covered by countries signed to the Protocol, “it’s hard to see how anyone cold label that a big success,” said EU climate chief Connie Hedegaad on Monday .

Williams said that after a year of record emissions growth and high temperatures, the push by the world’s biggest carbon polluters to delay flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence in support of immediate action and represents a betrayal of the people most vulnerable to climate change and the world.

The World Meteorological Organisation said in a statement on Tuesday that global temperatures in 2011 are currently the tenth highest on record. “Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new heights. They are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a 2-2.4 degree Centigrade rise in average global temperatures which scientists believe could trigger far reaching and irreversible changes,” the statement says.

“AOSIS will here in Durban reject any outcome that cannot ultimately safeguard our livelihoods and guarantee the survival of our nations. Why would we ever agree to a deal that has as its ultimate and inevitable consequence our own demise? If Durban puts off a legally binding agreement and closes the door on raising mitigation ambition before 2020 many of our small island states will be literally and figuratively doomed,” Williams stressed.

Rising sea levels due to global warming are not only a threat to small islands but also to coastal areas. In Tanzania, for example, some houses in Pangani Township become partly submerged during high tide. Fresh water from wells is no longer fit for human use due to the intrusion of salt water, forcing district authorities to drill new wells to supply water to communities.

In South Africa rising sea levels are threatening to submerge properties in Ballito and Amanzimtoti.

Last week, the International Energy Agency revealed that delaying action until 2017 would close the door to any hope of keeping global temperatures below 2°C, and put humanity on a course to the devastation of 4°C of warming and many metres of sea-level rise.

The proposed 2020 timeline would also leave more than five years between the next report of the IPCC (due in 2014) and a new round of emission reduction commitments.

“It is a betrayal not just of small island nations, many of whom would be destined for extinction, but a betrayal of all humanity. There are no plausible technical, economic or legal impediments for not taking the actions required by science – we need to act now!”  AOSIS Chair argued.

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The WHO’s Health in the Green Economy study will examine climate-change mitigation strategies, including those proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Mitigation efforts in sectors such as household energy, transport and housing could help combat major health threats such as obesity and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases in both developed and developing countries. However, others could pose health risks or create trade-offs.

Improved building insulation can, for instance, not only save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also bring health benefits. It can reduce reduce people’s exposure to extreme temperatures and harmful damp mould,  and so lower their risk from respiratory and infectious diseases. But people could be exposed to new health threats if harmful materials are used to build or insulate houses.

In the transport sector, the IPCC’s mitigation strategies have focused on improved fuels and vehicle technologies, pricing policies, changes to land use planning that makes cities more accessible by walking or cycling, and alternatives to private motorized transport.

The WHO says that the first two proposals will have a weak to moderate reduction of health risk factors. But that latter two would reduce respiratory and cardiovascular diseases from air pollution, limit traffic injuries and reduce noise stress – in addition to reducing risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

“Equally important is that such health benefits save money”, says Michael Wilks, immediate past president of the Standing Committee of European Doctors.

Wilks says that the European Union would save 30.5 billion euros in health-care costs by increasing its goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 to 30% below 1990 levels.

This saving represents nearly two-thirds of the annual 46 billion euro cost of such a change as estimated by the European Commission.

“In other words,” says Wilks, “health co-benefits have the potential to offset a large part of the financial costs of climate-change mitigation policies.”

The WHO wants to put health at the heart of the intergovernmental negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), through which governments are meant to be agreeing a global deal to tackle climate change.

“Our aim is to move health protection from being today a footnote in the current climate change negotiation text back to its original status, since the whole objective of the UNFCCC process is supposed to protect human health and welfare”, said Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, WHO scientist on public health and environment.

Campbell-Lendrum was a member of the ‘doctors delegation’ at the UNFCCC  conference Cancún, Mexico, last December last year. Their message to the climate negotiators was that:  “Addressing climate change through also a health outlook – besides the economic, environmental and social perspectives – is necessary to protect the human health and the well-being of humanity.”

Campbell-Lendrum says climate change can no longer be considered simply as an environment or development issue. “Climate change has also devastating consequences for human health since it affects the basic requirements for maintaining health: clean air and water, sufficient food and adequate shelter,” he says.

“Changing patterns of infections and insect-borne diseases; reduced water and food security, leading to malnutrition and diarrhoeal disease; increased frequency and magnitude of extreme climate events causing flooding and injury are some of the factors that make climate change the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”

But on the sidelines many feared the pressure for a deal on  the long-awaited REDD scheme might reflect no more than the pressure for some kind of outcome from the talks.

The REDD scheme is intended to mitigate climate change by paying developing countries to conserve their forests, so preserving the carbon locked up in them that might otherwise be emitted. The negotiators had sought to include several safeguards to ensure that natural forests and biodiversity really will be protected, and to care for people’s rights as well, particularly those of indigenous forest peoples.

At the end of Cancun’s first week, Philippines climate negotiator Antonio LaViña forecast that an agreement on REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation – would be reached.

True enough, negotiators did on the talks’ last day agree a text to protect forests. But observers said it was hazy on two issues: a scheme to finance REDD, and a monitoring process for the agreement’s safeguards. They called it a rushed deal.

One development NGO, Care International, said a REDD deal represented an easy win for the negotiators, who should be careful not to come up with one simply so that they could say that Cancun had produced an outcome: “We will see here how strong the political urge is for an outcome at all costs,” it said beforehand.

Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, another Philippines negotiator, said there had been attempts to water down the deal’s safeguards during the negotiations.

Saudi Arabia, she said in an interview, had pushed for the removal of provisions requiring the monitoring and reporting of compliance with the safeguards. It had insisted on regarding the safeguards as “additional obligations”,  although it does not even receive payments under REDD.

“It was quite surprising that they were questioning the standards we want included in REDD when the country does not have any forests,” said Tauli-Corpuz.

But maybe even more unexpected was the opposition of forested countries who will directly benefit from the REDD programme.

Rosalind Reeve of Global Witness, an NGO, told reporters the REDD negotiations had still been deadlocked in the last few days of the talks as Papua-New Guinea and Brazil resisted the safeguards.

She said the two rejected any language about the safeguards as it related to their national sovereignty. Put simply, she added, there was no consensus on how developing countries could account for their logging activities.

“We’d like to have Brazil and Papua-New Guinea be more supportive of environmental safeguards and integrity provisions. If we do not break these barriers of sovereignty, we can never solve climate change,” said Reeve.

With the agreement reached, forest nations, with the help of funding from rich economies, will in the next few months start implementing REDD. We shall soon see whether a text which left critical details and debates unresolved will damage REDD in the long run.