Cuba’s Coastal Dwellers Mitigate the Effects of Climate Change

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Climate Action

When the weather is bad, the residents of the Litoral neighborhood in Manzanillo, Cuba, are forced to evacuate their houses. When it’s calm, the sea penetrates the foundations of houses, leaving them vulnerable. Now the community is getting together to restore the mangroves and improve the environment to return their homes to safety.

A fisherman sits next to several boats at the GeoCuba Local Interest Fishing Port in the bay of Manzanillo, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

A fisherman sits next to several boats at the GeoCuba Local Interest Fishing Port in the bay of Manzanillo, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

MANZANILLO, Cuba, Oct 2 2024 (IPS) – Every time a hurricane clouds the skies over the city of Manzanillo, in the eastern Cuban province of Granma, the sea pounds the Litoral neighbourhood, forcing many of the 200 families who live there to evacuate inland because of flooding.

When the weather is calm, the sea penetrates subtly and constantly, salinizing the water table and eroding the coast, affecting the foundations of houses and artesian wells.

“The water almost always enters this area. The houses were built too close to the sea and the mangroves are deforested,” community leader Martha Labrada, 65, told IPS.

Labrada has presided over the people’s council (local administration organisation) for 13 years, which covers the Litoral neighbourhood and a two-kilometer stretch of coastline that is home to about 5,000 people.

Also, in her jurisdiction, about 0.2 square kilometres of mangroves have been deforested or are in very poor condition.

A mangrove forest in Manzanillo Bay, eastern Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

A mangrove forest in Manzanillo Bay, eastern Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Protective mangroves

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), mangroves extract up to five times more carbon than land forests, raise the ground level and thus slow down the rise in sea level.

This coastal ecosystem, typical of tropical and subtropical areas, usually consists of a swamp forest, a strip of black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) and a strip of red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), the barrier closest to the sea, whose trunks absorb the impact of waves and protect against extreme weather conditions.

Mangroves act as nurseries for fish fry and as havens for honey bees, among a huge variety of fauna and flora.

They also serve as a protective area for fresh water. If degraded, salt from marine waters would more easily enter underground water basins, contaminating the drinkability of this liquid and disabling wells located miles inland.

Blanca Estrada, administrative coordinator of the Mi Costa project on behalf of the provincial government of Granma in eastern Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Blanca Estrada, administrative coordinator of the Mi Costa project on behalf of the provincial government of Granma in eastern Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Protection from the sea

The Litoral neighbourhood is one of the most vulnerable in the municipality to climate change because it borders the mangroves, but it is not the only one in this situation.

In Manzanillo there are six people’s councils that are in direct contact with the coast. Some 60,000 inhabitants suffer the consequences, almost half of the total population of the municipality located 753 kilometres east of Havana.

The need to find solutions to the problem of rising sea levels was therefore born in the rural neighborhoods and villages of Manzanillo.

To counteract this prospect, small community projects emerged in 2018, also promoted by a national plan to tackle climate change known as Tarea Vida, which had been launched by the central government a year earlier.

As a result, 23 initiatives were set up in the municipality, which were later grouped in a single nationwide project called Mi Costa, the project’s coordinator in Manzanillo, Margot Hernández, told IPS.

Mi Costa seeks to create conditions of resilience to climate change through adaptation solutions based on strengthening the benefits provided by coastal ecosystems. In essence, its main task is to reforest and rehabilitate mangroves.

“In addition, we have to change living habits. That’s what we are working on,” Hernández added.

Ditch built in the middle of a mangrove swamp to contribute to its drainage and the recirculation of saline and fresh water, in the municipality of Manzanillo, eastern Cuba. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo

Ditch built in the middle of a mangrove swamp to contribute to its drainage and the recirculation of saline and fresh water in the municipality of Manzanillo, eastern Cuba. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo

Behind deforestation

Manzanillo, because of its low isometry and its 25 kilometres of coastline, is in a serious state of environmental vulnerability.

The deforested areas of mangroves amount to 708.7 hectares, being the most affected concentrated at the river mouths.

With a weakened natural containment barrier, the saline waters penetrate the riverbeds and, for example, in the Yara River, in the north of the municipality, they do so up to seven kilometres inland, according to Leandro Concepción, the project coordinator for the Granma Provincial Delegation of Hydraulic Resources.

In any case, the salinity penetrates through underground water basins and, according to Hernández, the coordinator in Manzanillo, “there are people’s artesian wells, which were once used for consumption but are now salinized.”

Mangrove deforestation has several causes: the lack or blockage of channels hinders the ebb and flow of the tide and alters the exchange of freshwater with marine waters.

It is also affected by the invasion of invasive exotic species such as the arboreal Ipil Ipil or guaje (Leucaena leucocephala), anthropogenic human intervention through the construction of infrastructure, agricultural and livestock practices near the coast, and even the felling of mangroves to make charcoal.

A group of people receive a given by the Mi Costa project at the Manzanillo Training Centre. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo

A group of people receive a class given by the Mi Costa project at the Manzanillo Training Center. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo

According to Labrada, the community leader in Litoral, several houses have been built almost adjacent to the mangrove, without the corresponding construction permits. Moreover, state-owned industrial infrastructures, such as a shoe factory and an inactive sawmill, cause the same damage.

Coastal and river pollution from industrial waste dumping also depresses coastal ecosystems.

For decades, the region’s sugar mills and rice industry dumped their waste into the rivers, Blanca Estrada, administrative coordinator of Mi Costa on behalf of the Granma provincial government, told IPS.

This situation is one of the examples of climate injustice in the area: upstream, the industrial sector caused environmental havoc that affected mangrove health and, at the end of the chain, the quality of life of coastal residents, making them more vulnerable to climatic events.

In 2023, decisive measures were taken to solve the problem and the few active factories no longer discharge their waste into the sea or use filters. In the second half of 2024, the results have already begun to show: “The migratory birds have returned, something you didn’t see months ago,” said Estrada.

However, the effects of climate change still persist in Manzanillo.

“The environmental situation today is quite complex for the keys,” Víctor Remón, director of Manzanillo’s Department of Territorial Development, which belongs to the local government, told IPS.

The municipality’s territory contains an extensive cay of 2.44 square kilometres, but Cayo Perla has already been submerged under the waters of the Gulf of Guacanayabo.

“It disappeared six or seven years ago. It was a beautiful key, with beautiful white sands. There was a tourist facility from where you could see the city of Manzanillo,” Remón said.

For his part, Roberto David Rosales, fisherman and Mi Costa contributor, remembers a path he used to walk along the shore until last year; now it has been ‘swallowed’ by the sea.

“Almost two meters were lost in this area in one year. These are things that force us to be protectors of the mangroves. The Mi Costa project came at the right time,” he told IPS.

Margot Hernández (left), coordinator of the Mi Costa project in Manzanillo, opens the training centre in the city of Manzanillo. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo

Margot Hernández (left), coordinator of the Mi Costa project in Manzanillo, opens the training centre in the city of Manzanillo. Credit: Courtesy of Mi Costa in Manzanillo

Steps towards a solution

Mi Costa was made official in December 2021, but heavy work began in 2023, due to a pause caused by the COVID pandemic.

In Manzanillo, the project brought together about 100 collaborators, who were divided into small community groups of about 10 people, who support the monitoring and cleaning of mangroves and ditches and awareness-raising among the population.

Labrada also has its own people’s council group, composed of six women and four men.

In addition, training centres have been set up in the municipality on climate change adaptability, environmental safeguards, gender and other issues. To date, 10,500 people have been trained.

“We are working with the coast dwellers, because the issue is that people don’t leave the coasts, but that they stay and learn to live there, taking care of them,” said Estrada, the government coordinator.

Sunset on the boardwalk in the eastern Cuban city of Manzanillo. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Sunset on the boardwalk in the eastern Cuban city of Manzanillo. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

They have also built 1,300 meters of ditches, using picks and shovels, to achieve a form of water rotation, but this figure has yet to be multiplied.

The immediate challenge is to finish building the nursery where the mangrove seedlings will sprout and then be planted in the deforested areas.

“Once we have the nursery, there will be no difficulty at all in Granma to begin the process of rehabilitating the mangroves,” Norvelis Reyes, Mi Costa’s main coordinator in the province, told IPS.

Mi Costa’s area of action in Granma covers, in addition to the coast of Manzanillo, the northern municipalities of Yara and Río Cauto.

Nationwide, 24 communities in the south of Cuba are involved in resilience actions (1,300 kilometres of coastline), of which 14 are at risk of disappearing due to coastal flooding by 2050, including Manzanillo.

The southern coast of this Caribbean island country was chosen because it is more vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise, given its lower geographical isometry than in the north.

In addition, the south also has a higher concentration of mangroves, making it more necessary and effective to build coastal resilience based on adaptation and focused on the rehabilitation and reforestation of these ecosystems.

While implemented by the communities themselves and with the participation of the villagers, the project is supervised by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment and the country office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The Green Climate Fund provided funding of USD 23.9 million, while Cuban state institutions contributed USD 20.3 million.

The ultimate goal will be to restore some 114 square kilometres of mangroves, 31 square kilometres of swamp forest and nine square kilometres of grassy swamps in eight years. After that, a period of 22 years will be dedicated to the operation and maintenance of the implemented actions.

It is estimated that more than 1.3 million people will benefit on this Caribbean island, the largest in the region and home to 11 million people.

UN Bureau Report

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Rejuvenating Tradition To Help Save Ancient Engineering Marvel—Dhamapur Lake

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Environment

The Vijayanagar rulers constructed an earth-fill dam in 1530 AD to create Dhamapur Lake. There is now a campaign to save it. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

The Vijayanagar rulers constructed an earth-fill dam in 1530 AD to create Dhamapur Lake. There is now a campaign to save it. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

PUNE, India, Oct 2 2024 (IPS) – Dhamapur is a small village in Malvan taluka of west Sindhudurg district, housing the famous Dhamapur Lake. The Vijayanagar kings constructed an earthfill dam in 1530 A.D., creating a man-made lake surrounded by hills on three sides. Canals connect it to the Karli river, irrigating lush paddies and farms that grow the red Sorti and Walay rice varieties typical to the region.

A Bhagwati temple constructed in the typical Konkan style stands on its banks. Small shrines to anthills flank this temple, which is devoted to Goddess Bhagwati. This is because all over the Konkan region, anthills are considered manifestations of the Earth Goddess and worshipped as Goddess Sateri. These are monuments to biodiversity and well-being; white ants or termites that build anthills are known to aerate the soil, help seed dispersal, and improve soil fertility. The worship of anthills is an old Vedic practice that continues to survive in and around the Konkan region of Maharashtra, Goa, and its neighborhood to this day.

The construction of the earthfill dam on Dhamapur Lake too spells of local ingenuity. Made up of porous laterite stone that is locally found here, every layer of stone is alternated with a layer of biomass made of twigs and branches.

This freshwater reservoir, used for irrigation and drinking water purposes, is one of Maharashtra’s oldest engineering marvels. Its waters and the Kalse-Dhamapur forests that flank it nurture a wide variety of unique floral and faunal species, making it a popular tourist destination.

But beauty apart, this man-made lake, which is geographically on higher ground as compared to the surrounding countryside, plays an important role in recharging the groundwater, acting as a sponge during the monsoons.  Apart from serving as an important source of drinking water and irrigation, Dhamapur Lake nurtures an entire ecosystem. Its waters and surrounding forests harbour a wide variety of flora and fauna, some of which are endangered species. Its significance can be gauged from the fact that it was given the Word Heritage Irrigation Structure (WHIS) Award by the International Commission of Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) in 2020.

But in recent times, several encroachments have affected this extensive waterbody. Guest houses, wells, and walkways built in its floodplains to boost tourism have been eating into its extensive area, in scant regard to the flora and fauna that thrive in its pristine waters.

Fighting for Dhamapur Lake

In recent years, though, Dhamapur Lake has found a savior in Sachin Desai and his organisation, Syamantak Trust. Incidentally, Sachin Desai and his wife, Meenal, have an interesting background that illustrates their love for the natural world and India’s time-honored traditions.

Believers in home schooling, the Desais fought out with the authorities to home-school their daughter. Abandoning high-paying corporate jobs, these two professionals set up the University of Life on their ancestral property to familiarize youngsters with traditional bricklaying, carpentry and farming skills in 2007. To stem the migration from the region, they sought to inculcate love and respect for traditional practices, foods, and cuisine among youngsters. This was how the Syamantak Trust came into being.

In the years that followed, learners and youngsters who spent time at the University of Life went to use the knowledge they acquired to specialize in respective fields or venture into entrepreneurship, selling local products to tourists frequenting Dhamapur. Rohit Ajgaonkar, once a student at the University of Life, has become an active volunteer with Syamantak and runs a small eco-café in Dhamapur.  Remarkable in its use of local materials, the eco-café has an array of local delicacies such as kashayam and jackfruit, wood apple, and mango ice creams.

Rohit and his mother, Rupali Ajgaonkar, also run a shop adjoining their eco-café, wherein they sell hand-pounded local masalas, mango and jackfruit toffee, local pickles, cashew butter, kokum syrups and kokum butter.  Prathamesh Kalsekar, another student of the University of Life who is the son of a local farmer, is now doing his B.Sc. (Agriculture) at the Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth. He has raised a private forest on his family land in Dhamapur, and now grows many local fruit and vegetable trees, bushes, and plants, particularly focusing on nutrient-rich wild varieties. He has also set up a nursery of saplings for distribution among local farmers.

A temple on the outskirts of Dhamapur Lake. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

The Bhagwati temple is on the banks of Dhamapur Lake. The temple is built in the typical Konkan style, wherein the deity is placed at one end in the sanctum sanctorum. The main section of the temple is reserved for the assembly of elders who meet and discuss matters related to the village. The temple is reminiscent of a bygone era when a place of worship also served as a place for the community to assemble and parley. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

The Ongoing Battle to Save Dhamapur

These skills and respect for nature came in handy when Syamantak embarked on its mission to save Dhamapur and other waterbodies in Sindhudurg district through a community-led movement, following the construction of a skywalk undertaken by the authorities in 2014, and the running of diesel-run boats for tourists by the panchayat (village self-governing body). But this was easier said than done, notwithstanding the public zeal.

Desai and his volunteers realized that “Sindhudurg district has several wetlands and waterbodies. However, the authorities haven’t notified or demarcated any of them. This permits encroachments, a lot of them by government bodies.” In the case of Dhamapur Lake, the high flood line was ignored, and private parties encroached upon the peripheral areas of the lake. Even the state government’s Department of Agriculture had built a nursery and sunk a well on the floodplains of the lake.

Making use of the National Wetland Atlas prepared by the Space Applications Centre of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre in 2010, during the tenure of Minister of Environment & Forests Jairam Ramesh, Syamantak Trust approached the Western Zonal bench of the National Green Tribunal. Some residents of Sindhudurg district also filed an Environment Interest Litigation (EIL) to save the lake. At that time, the phytoplankton population had already decreased due to the construction of 35 pillars and the 500-meter-long cement concrete skywalk.

An Interim Order in 2018 by the Tribunal not only halted all further construction but saw every bit of concrete broken down and removed from the precincts of the lake. It also stopped the use of diesel boats on the lake . Furthermore, the state Public Works Department (PWD) was ordered to shell out Rs 1.5 crore for mitigation measures to be undertaken to reverse the damages caused by the construction of the 2.5 km skywalk and the use of diesel boats.

Meanwhile, following the formation of a 32-member Wetland Brief Documentation Committee as per an Order by the District Collector, the Syamantak Trust organized the local citizenry to document the flora and fauna of Dhamapur lake. They were soon joined by students from the local college of architecture, academicians, botanists, zoologists, and geographers from Mumbai and other parts of India, besides Dr Balkrishna Gavade and Dr Yogesh Koli, who lent their expertise for the study.  Mapping Dhamapur helped the volunteers learn about the kind of biodiversity hotspot the Western Ghats region is, especially in the forested tracts around Dhamapur Lake.

Five months spent documenting the various wetland flora and fauna showed 35 species of birds belonging to 18 families to frequent the lake, such as the Eurasian Marsh Harrier, Indian Pond Heron, Lapwing, Kingfisher,  and Small Bee-Eater. The lake was found to be particularly lush with phytoplankton and zooplankton species, which are the building blocks of a wetland ecosystem. The volunteers would also learn about how the Wax Dart butterfly was reported for the first time in Maharashtra, on the banks of Dhamapur lake.

Once Dhamapur was mapped, the volunteers went on to document a total of 57 wetlands and waterbodies in Sindhudurg district, including those as yet unlisted by the authorities. These included Vimleshwar in Devgad, Pat Lake in Kudal, and Jedgyachikond in Chaukul, among others.

The Uphill Struggle to Save Dhamapur Lake

The mapping and summary of violations were to come in handy when fighting to conserve Dhamapur Lake at the NGT.  However, the community’s fight to have Dhamapur Lake recognized as a wetland has not borne fruit so far. “Our case was dismissed by the NGT in 2023 on the grounds that the lake does not qualify to be a wetland in keeping with the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules 2017, since it was constructed for drinking water and agricultural purposes,” Desai tells IPS.

However, the Trust and its community volunteers have not given up yet. They have now approached the Supreme Court to demand

1) Demarcation of the Lake’s buffer zone and high flood line; and

2) Notification of the Lake by the state government in its gazette.

Once notified, the Lake, they feel, would be protected against further encroachment from public and private bodies alike.

Meanwhile, Syamantak Trust, along with members of the local community, continue to familiarize visiting students and persons from other parts of India with this unique water-body and its flora and fauna through eco-trails. As of this year, Syamantak Trust has begun hosting classical music concerts with the theme “Connect to Nature,” allowing music lovers to explore the vast repertoire of Hindustani classical music and its connection to the seasons and nature’s clock.

Currently, the Desais and their volunteers in the local community sincerely hope that once people in Dhamapur and beyond learn to appreciate and love nature, it will help them connect better with the lake and its entire ecosystem. This can be the best and only bulwark against the destructive march of climate change.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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‘Australia Must Turn Its Climate Rhetoric into Action’

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Oct 1 2024 (IPS) –  
CIVICUS discusses the recent Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting in Tonga with Jacynta Fa’amau, Pacific Campaigner at 350.org, a global civil society organisation campaigning for climate action.

Representatives from 18 countries gathered in Tonga for the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting from 26 to 30 August, seeking to address issues including the climate crisis, socio-economic challenges and political conflict in New Caledonia. A key agenda item was securing funding for the Pacific Resilience Facility, a climate finance mechanism aimed at supporting communities affected by climate change. Civil society called on Australia, the world’s third largest fossil fuel exporter and a co-founder of the Forum, to demonstrate real climate leadership by phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy.

Jacynta Fa’amau

What was on the agenda at the recent PIF Leaders Meeting?

The PIF is an intergovernmental body that aims to improve cooperation between Pacific states and territories, Australia and New Zealand. We may be divided by national borders, but we are united by the ocean, and many of the issues that affect one island can provide valuable lessons for another. As a Samoan, I know my future is linked to that of a sister in the Solomon Islands or a brother in the atolls of Kiribati.

PIF meetings bring together regional leaders to discuss the most pressing issues facing our region. At the 53rd session, the agenda focused on several issues, including climate change, climate finance, education, health and the Pacific Policing Initiative – an Australia-backed strategy to train and support police.

But climate issues were at the top of the agenda. As Pacific Islanders, we know that phasing out fossil fuels is critical to our survival. We deserve not just resilience, but the ability to thrive in the face of this crisis. To do this, we need access to adequate climate finance and affordable renewable energy. The Pacific Resilience Facility is part of the way to achieve this, with an emphasis on ensuring accessibility for communities. Leaders had already endorsed Tonga as the host country for this financial facility, so now the key priority is to secure the resources.

What were civil society’s priorities, and what did it bring to the table?

Civil society has a vital role to play in holding leaders to their promises and creating pathways for communities to get involved. The PIF’s Civil Society Village hosted remarkable groups such as the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network and the Pacific Network on Globalisation, which are working to bridge the gap between civil society and policymakers.

As for 350.org Pacific, our role has always been to ensure that communities have the tools they need to take part in multilateral discussions that often seem far removed from realities on the ground. There’s no point in making decisions about the people you serve if you do it without their input. Before the PIF began, we held the Our Pawa Training with over 200 young people and students across Tonga. ‘Pawa’ references the people power driving the climate movement and the promise of a Pacific built on safe, ethical renewable energy. This training equipped young Tongans with tools to engage in climate conversations.

Our top priority is to ensure a safe and liveable future for the Pacific. Scientists have made it abundantly clear that our survival depends on an immediate global phase out of fossil fuels. Wealthier nations must phase out first, and historical emitters must support the global south in achieving their phase out.

The Pacific mustn’t be left behind in the renewable energy revolution. It’s unfair that our islands should bear the financial burden of recovering from a crisis we didn’t cause. We need the resources and expertise to transform our energy systems on our own terms and put the land, sea and wellbeing of Pacific Islanders first. We call for accessible climate funding to meet the Pacific Resilience Facility’s US$500 million target.

For us, this means Australia must turn its climate rhetoric into action.

Why is Australia at the centre of civil society’s demands?

As the region’s biggest producer of fossil fuels and the third largest exporter in the world, Australia plays a significant role in the climate crisis that threatens our survival. To come to the lands of our ancestors and claim climate leadership while signing our death warrants with every gas project you approve is immoral and unacceptable.

But we also hold Australia to high standards because it claims to be our family. In the Pacific, kinship puts the welfare of the many before the greed of the one. There’s no world in which Australia can be a true partner to the Pacific while continuing to exploit fossil fuels. With every tonne of coal exported, Australia is exporting climate disaster to our islands.

Australia must commit to phasing out fossil fuels, domestically and in its exports. It must ensure the Pacific is not left behind in the transition to renewable energy and commit to the funding it’s historically owed to the victims of the climate crisis. The Ki Mua Report commissioned by the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative found that eight Pacific countries could transform their energy systems for less than a seventh of the amount Australia gives to the fossil fuel industry.

With its potential COP31 presidency on the horizon, Australia has the chance to become the climate leader it claims to be.

Did the outcomes of the PIF meeting meet your expectations?

We had high expectations, particularly on climate action, given the recent report by the World Meteorological Organisation on the accelerated sea level rise our region faces. The Pacific is particularly vulnerable, so we need to be exceptionally ambitious. Despite our negligible contribution to this climate crisis, we have set ourselves ambitious climate targets. We have been innovative in our adaptation strategies and ambitious in our climate finance goals.

And while the PIF’s final communiqué is an encouraging step towards securing the resources we need to tackle the climate crisis, there’s a disappointing lack of pressure on the region’s major fossil fuel producers to commit to a phase out.

The PIF’s focus on peace and stability was important given the current sovereignty struggles and the shadow of a geopolitical tug-of-war hanging over our islands. But the climate crisis remains the most pressing security threat we face. With each new cyclone comes increased instability, and with each displaced community comes a host of security issues.

The time for deliberation is long past and the time for action is upon us. The PIF may be over, but the journey to COP29 is just beginning. We Pacific climate warriors will continue to celebrate our culture and ancestors as we advocate for decisive climate action that will help us achieve a safe and sustainable future for the Pacific. We hope those with the power to effect change will choose to join us.

Get in touch with 350.org through its website or Facebook and Instagram pages, and follow @350 on Twitter.

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COP 29: High Stakes for Small Islands Fighting for Climate Finance

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COP29

Buoyed by the collaboration and agenda established in their SIDS4 conference in May, small island developing states are preparing for COP29 with a focus on climate finance and collaboration. IPS spoke with an official from Saint Lucia about that nation’s climate action, preparation for COP29 and the importance of a united SIDS’ voice in negotiations.

Section of Castries, Saint Lucia. Through ambitious NDCs, SIDS like Saint Lucia are hoping to shore up resilience and protect their economies and infrastructure. Access to adequate climate financing remains crucial to these efforts. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

Section of Castries, Saint Lucia. Through ambitious NDCs, SIDS like Saint Lucia are hoping to shore up resilience and protect their economies and infrastructure. Access to adequate climate financing remains crucial to these efforts. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

SAINT LUCIA, Oct 1 2024 (IPS) – Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are experiencing the most severe impacts of climate change. When leaders of those islands met in Antigua and Barbuda in May, they let the world know that achieving climate justice hinges on comprehensive climate finance.

As they prepare for the 2024 United Nations climate change conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, Saint Lucia is prioritizing this issue, strengthening alliances with other SIDS, and seeking critical funding for adaptation and mitigation projects. With the recent enactment of its Climate Change Act of 2024, the island nation recognizes that securing climate finance is vital for safeguarding its future.

“This year’s COP has been dubbed the ‘Finance COP’,” Maya Sifflet, a Sustainable Development and Environment Officer for Saint Lucia told IPS. “The focus is to get the finance we need to mobilize and implement the ambitious climate action we’ve committed to.”

Saint Lucia, like many other SIDS, faces significant challenges in adapting to the impacts of climate change. Rising sea levels, more intense storms and shifting weather patterns are already threatening its economy and infrastructure. Sifflet explained that Saint Lucia has developed a comprehensive National Adaptation Plan (NAP), which integrates climate action into national development strategies. However, without adequate funding, even the most well-crafted plans risk falling short.

“Every year, countries submit their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), outlining the climate action they’re taking. We are encouraged to make them as ambitious as possible, stating what climate action we are taking. Our NDCs now capture not only our mitigation efforts, but our adaptation efforts as well,” Sifflet said.

Finance is crucial to those plans.

“We need to ensure our sectors are more resilient—agriculture, tourism, fisheries. Each sector was encouraged to assess its risk, assess vulnerabilities and explore what actions can be taken to build resilience. We have therefore developed several sectoral adaptation strategies and action plans.”

Saint Lucia has also developed a set of bankable project concepts, which aim to make the nation “finance-ready” when global funds become available. These initiatives are part of a broader effort to position the country to receive climate funding, whether through bilateral agreements or international mechanisms.

Sifflet emphasized that collective action through umbrella groups like the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is crucial to Saint Lucia’s success at COP29. “We negotiate in blocs. Our strength is in numbers,” she said. “Through AOSIS, we exchange knowledge, share experiences, and amplify each other’s voices in the negotiations. It’s a big arena, it’s very contentious and you need that collective presence to have power.”

One of the key areas Saint Lucia and AOSIS members will focus on during COP29 is the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund, which was a breakthrough agreement during COP27. The fund is designed to provide financial assistance to vulnerable countries for losses and damages resulting from climate change impacts that cannot be mitigated or adapted to.

“Operationalizing the Loss and Damage Fund would be a major success at COP29,” Sifflet noted. “It’s something SIDS have lobbied for over many years. This fund signifies that the global community is ready to put money where their mouth is.”

Saint Lucia, in anticipation of the fund’s formalization, has already conducted a Loss and Damage Needs-Based Assessment to ensure it is prepared to access financing once it becomes available.

“As vulnerable countries, we bear the brunt of climate change, often being forced to hit the reset button after every extreme weather event,” Sifflet added. “And it’s not just about economic losses—our cultural assets, things that can’t be quantified, are at risk. There is so much at stake for us as small islands,” she told IPS.

Sifflet concluded that while Saint Lucia’s preparation for COP29 has been extensive, the real measure of success will be securing the finance and global commitments needed to ensure the survival and prosperity of small islands in the face of climate change.

This week, the COP29 Presidency unveiled a group of programmes to propel global climate action. In a letter to all parties, President-Designate Mukhtar Babayev said it include the Baku Initiative on Climate Finance, Investment and Trade, noting that “climate finance, as a critical enabler of climate action, is a centrepiece of the COP29 Presidency’s vision.”

This year’s COP is expected to be a competitive negotiations stage for global climate change funding. Small island developing states will be looking to the large economies and major emitters of greenhouse gases to give the financial support needed for adaptation and mitigation measures to cope with a crisis that they did little to create. The stakes for Saint Lucia, and other SIDS, are high.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Georgia’s Dangerous Anti-LGBTQI+ Law

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Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Europe, Featured, Gender Identity, Gender Violence, Global, Headlines, Human Rights, LGBTQ, Press Freedom, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Vano Shlamov/AFP via Getty Images

LONDON, Sep 30 2024 (IPS) – Georgia’s ruling party has put LGBTQI+ people firmly in the firing line ahead of next month’s election. On 17 September, parliament gave final approval to a highly discriminatory law that empowers the authorities to censor books and films with LGBTQI+ content, stop discussion of LGBTQI+ issues in schools, ban people from flying rainbow flags and prevent Pride events. The law excludes LGBTQI+ people from adopting children, bans gender affirmation surgery and refuses to recognise same-sex marriages of Georgians conducted abroad.

Latest troubling development

Georgia’s anti-LGBTQI+ law breaches a wide range of international human rights commitments. And it’s a repeat offence: in May, a bill became law designating civil society and media groups that receive at least 20 per cent of funding from international sources as ‘pursuing the interests of a foreign power’. The ‘foreign agents’ law will enable vilification, fuel public suspicion and tie organisations up in lengthy compliance procedures.

President Salome Zourabichvili, who is independent of the ruling Georgian Dream party, vetoed the foreign agents bill, calling it a ‘Russian law’, also the view of the mass protest movement that rose up to oppose it. But presidential powers are weak, and parliament quickly reversed the veto. Zourabichvili – Georgia’s last directly elected president, with future presidents to be picked by parliament after her term ends in October – has also pledged to veto the anti-LGBTQI+ law. But a similar parliamentary override seems certain.

Georgia Dream says its anti-LGBTQI+ law, known as the law on ‘family values and the protection of minors’, is needed to defend ‘traditional moral standards’. It also said its foreign agents law was needed to stop international funders sponsoring ‘LGBT propaganda’ and fomenting revolution.

Both laws are part of a growing climate of state hostility towards civil society, in a country that once stood out as an ex-Soviet state that broadly respected civic freedoms. Last year, the European Union (EU)-Georgia Civil Society Platform – a body established as part of negotiations towards the country potentially joining the EU – criticised a sustained government smear campaign against civil society. Freedom House pointed to growing harassment and violence against journalists.

The anti-LGBTQI+ law reflects a reassertion of influence by the Georgian Orthodox Church, the country’s dominant religion, and a closer alignment with Russia. The foreign agents law imitates one introduced in Russia in 2012, which paved the way for intense repression of civil society, while Georgia’s anti-LGBTQI+ law is also strikingly similar to that passed in Russia in 2013, which has been extensively used to criminalise and silence LGBTQI+ people.

The two laws can only move the country further away from the stated goal of joining the EU. They place Georgia at a fork in the road: the government and the church clearly see it as a socially conservative country that legitimately belongs in Russia’s orbit. But others – the many people, overwhelmingly young, who’ve protested and faced state violence in return – represent a different Georgian identity: one that’s democratic, inclusive and European.

Vilification and violence

Hostility has made it harder for Georgia’s LGBTQI+ people to claim visibility. Last year, violent far-right attacks forced the cancellation of the Tbilisi Pride parade. The authorities have consistently failed to ensure the safety of participants. When people first marched on 17 May 2013, they were attacked by a mob that included members of the clergy. In 2021, extremist groups also attacked journalists covering the event, as the police stood by and did nothing.

In 2014, the year after Pride first mobilised, the Church declared 17 May – the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia – to be Family Purity Day, an event marked with a public holiday. This year, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze joined thousands at the Family Purity Day march in Tbilisi. In contrast, such was the level of hostility that Tbilisi Pride organisers decided to only hold virtual events. LGBTQI+ people were denied the chance to do the very thing Pride events exist for: assert visibility and normalise their public presence.

The new law reverses some recent progress civil society achieved in shifting homophobic social values, with young people particularly showing more tolerant attitudes. But now the law will have the effect similar legislation has had elsewhere: giving the green light to stigmatisation, vilification and violence. Activists have pointed to the recent murder of one of the country’s few high-profile transgender people, model Kesaria Abramidze, as a grim sign of what may come. Extremist groups can only be emboldened, confident the law is on their side when they commit acts of hatred.

The upcoming election

Georgian Dream seeks a fourth consecutive term when the country goes to the polls in October. With the opposition divided, it seems certain to come first again. But its support fell in the last election and opinion polls suggest it’s lost more votes since. Possibly worried about keeping its majority, it’s opted to vilify an already excluded group of people.

Georgian Dream may think hostility towards LGBTQI+ people and civil society groups is safer electoral territory than a more explicitly anti-western, pro-Russian stance. But its recent decisions signal how it will rule if its electoral strategy pays off: not by upholding the rights of all Georgians but by putting the interests of its socially conservative supporters first, and by tailoring policies to please Vladimir Putin.

Georgian Dream still pays lip service to the idea of joining the EU, but the party’s billionaire financier and behind-the-scenes leader Bidzina Ivanishvili recently made his position clear, accusing western countries of being part of a global conspiracy to drag Georgia into a repeat of its ill-fated 2008 war with Russia. Georgian-Russian relations have warmed since Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine in 2022.

The EU, for its part, reacted to the foreign agents law by suspending financial aid and Georgia’s accession negotiations. It must take a firm line and make clear Georgia won’t be allowed to join until the human rights of all its people are recognised and civil society is respected.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

A longer version of this article is available here.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org.

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Activists Call on World to ‘Imagine’ Peace, End Nuclear Arms

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Active Citizens, Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Conferences, Editors’ Choice, Featured, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Nuclear Disarmament, Peace, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Peace

The panel for the session on “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World without Nuclear Weapons.” Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

The panel for the session on “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World without Nuclear Weapons.” Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

PARIS, Sep 27 2024 (IPS) – In any discussion of world peace and the future of humanity, the issue of nuclear arms must be addressed, and now.

That was the message from a range of delegates at the “Imaginer la Paix / Imagine Peace” conference, held in Paris September 22 to 24, and organized by the Sant’Egidio Community, a Christian organization founded in Rome in 1968 and now based in 70 countries.

Describing its tenets as “Prayer, service to the Poor and work for Peace,” the community has hosted 38 international, multi-faith peace meetings, bringing together activists from around the world. This is the first time the conference has been held in Paris, with hundreds traveling to France, itself a nuclear-weapon state.

Occurring against the backdrop of brutal, on-going conflicts in different regions and a new race by some countries to “upgrade” their arsenal, the gathering had a sense of urgency, with growing fears that nuclear weapons might be used by warlords. Participants highlighted current and past atrocities and called upon world leaders to learn from the past.

“After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been blessed with many who have said ‘no’—’no’ a million times, creating movements and treaties, (and) awareness… that the only reasonable insight to learn from the conception and use of nuclear weapons is to say ‘no’,” said Andrea Bartoli, president of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, based in New York.

Participating in a conference forum Monday titled “Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Imagining a World Without Nuclear Weapons,”  Bartoli and other speakers drew stark pictures of what living in a world with nuclear weapons entails, and they highlighted developments since World War II.

“After the two bombs were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humans built more than 70,000 nuclear weapons and performed more than 2,000 tests. Still today we have more than 12,500, each of them with power greatly superior to the two used in August 1945,” Bartoli said.

Despite awareness of the catastrophic potential of these weapons and despite a UN treaty prohibiting their use, some governments argue that possessing nuclear arms is a deterrent—an argument that is deceptive, according to the forum speakers.

Anna Ikeda, program coordinator tor disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International. Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International. Credit: AD McKenzie/IPS

Jean-Marie Collin, director of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a movement launched in the early 2000s in Australia and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017), said that leaders who cite deterrence “accept the possibility of violating” international human rights.

“Nuclear weapons are designed to destroy cities and kill and maim entire populations, which means that all presidents and heads of government who implement a defense policy based on nuclear deterrence and who are therefore responsible for giving this order, are aware of this,” Collin told the forum.

ICAN campaigned for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was adopted at the United Nations in 2017, entering into force in 2021. The adoption came nearly five decades after the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which entered into force in 1970.

The terms of the NPT consider five countries to be nuclear weapons states: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China. Four other countries also possess nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel.

According to a 2024 ICAN report, these nine states jointly spent €85 billion (USD 94,6 billion) on their atomic weapon arsenals last year, an expenditure ICAN has called “obscene” and “unacceptable.” France, whose president Emmanuel Macron spoke about peace in broad, general terms at the opening of the conference, spent around €5,3 billion (about USD 5,9 billion) in 2023 on its nuclear weapons, said the report.

The policy of “deterrence” and “reciprocity,”  which essentially means “we’ll get rid of our weapons if you get rid of yours,”  has been slammed by ICAN and fellow disarmament activists.

“With the constant flow of information, we often tend to lose sight of the reality of figures,” Collin said at the peace conference. “I hope this one will hold your attention: it is estimated that more than 38,000 children were killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Children!”

All those killed—an estimated 210,000 people by the end of 1945—died in horrific ways, as survivors and others have testified. Delegates said that this knowledge should be the real “deterrent.”

At the forum, Anna Ikeda, program coordinator for disarmament at the UN Office of Soka Gakkai International, a global Buddhist movement, described testimony from a Hiroshima a-bomb survivor, Reiko Yamada, as one she would never forget.

“She (Yamada) stated, ‘A good friend of mine in the neighbourhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her four brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children. They cremated her body in the yard,” Ikeda told the audience with emotion.

“Who deserves to die such a death? Nobody!” she continued. “Yet our world continues to spend billions of dollars to upkeep our nuclear arsenals, and our leaders at times imply readiness to use them. It is utterly unacceptable.”

Ikeda said that survivors, known as the “hibakusha” in Japan, have a fundamental answer to why nuclear weapons must be abolished—it is that “no one else should ever suffer what we did.”

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau Report