Nepal’s Deadly Flash Floods: What Went Wrong?

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Kathmandu under water because of heavy rainfall, which claimed more than 225 lives in last week of September. Photo: Barsha Shah/IPS

Kathmandu under water because of heavy rainfall, which claimed more than 225 lives in last week of September. Photo: Barsha Shah/IPS

KATHMANDU, Oct 3 2024 (IPS) – Nepal is trying to recover from recent flash floods and landslides caused by heavy rainfall over the last weekend of September, which claimed at least 226 lives. The mid- and eastern parts of the country, including the capital, Kathmandu, experienced the heaviest monsoon rains in two decades from September 26-28, leaving many parts of Kathmandu underwater. Experts say this is one of the deadliest and worst flash floods that impacted thousands of people in decades.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA)—facing intense backlash for its inability to act effectively to minimize losses—reported by Tuesday (October 1) that at least 25 people were still stranded or missing, while more than 150 were injured.

On September 28, the country’s 25 weather stations in 14 districts recorded new precipitation records within 24-hours. Kathmandu airport stations recorded 239.7 millimeters of rain. Before that, on July 23, 2002, it had recorded 177 mm of rainfall. Flash floods caused by extreme rainfall within a short period washed away entire neighborhoods, roads, and bridges in Kathmandu and surrounding areas.

The heavy rains caused rivers in Kathmandu, including the Bagmati, which runs through the city, to swell more than 2 meters above the safe level. Senior journalist Yubaraj Ghimire—whose house was also submerged—wrote, “The disastrous hours of terror further confirmed the state’s incompetence in times of need.”

Outside of Kathmandu villages like Roshi in Kavre district are impacted by flood and landslides. Photo: Barsha Shah/IPS

Outside of Kathmandu villages like Roshi in Kavre district are impacted by flood and landslides. Photo: Barsha Shah/IPS

Early warnings were there, but lives were lost!

Frustration is growing, not only because of its failure in conducting effective rescue operations but also for not acting on the information that was available beforehand about the forthcoming disaster.

The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) issued a special weather bulletin at least five days prior, alerting the public to impending heavy rainfall that could result in flooding and landslides.

In the bulletin, the DHM labeled districts with red, orange, yellow, and green, urging “Take Action,” “Be Prepared,” “Be Updated,” and “No Warning,” respectively.

Again, on September 25, the DHM issued another “special weather bulletin,” this time labeling most parts of the country in red, or the “Take Action” category.

As predicted, heavy rain started pouring—rivers began flowing with water levels higher than the safe limit.

“The information was there, but it doesn’t seem like it was taken seriously to be prepared,” Dr. Ngamindra Dahal, who works on climate change-induced disaster risk reduction, said. “To minimize consequences, we need to take action according to the information we have, but that was not the case in most parts.”

Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli acknowledged that the government was not prepared for a disaster of this scale. In a press conference on Tuesday, Oli said, “Our preparedness was not for this kind of circumstance. We were not expecting this scale of rains, landslides, and human and infrastructure losses.”

But the weather agency, DHM, had been warning and urging appropriate action through multiple notices. Government agencies admit they were not able to communicate disaster-related information effectively.

Why was NDRRMA not able to act quickly?

This time, the weather information was accurate in most parts, but avoidable incidents still claimed lives.

“I was traveling, and what I can say is that even though there was information beforehand, it was not transformed into action,” Dahal added. “I do think NDRRMA and other stakeholders could have done better to reduce casualties.”

But the agency responsible for disaster risk reduction and management—NDRRMA—claims that it was due to their collaborative effort with other stakeholders that human casualties were lower.

“That information did help, and it is because of us that things are not worse than this,” Dr. Dijan Bhattrai, spokesperson for NDRRMA, said.

“In the case of Kathmandu, our urban setting is not capable of handling this kind of disaster, and in other parts of the country, it was a combination of intense rain and fragmented geological conditions due to the 2015 earthquake.”

Stakeholders have publicly acknowledged the role of river encroachment and unplanned settlement in Kathmandu, and this problem is well-known. However, for this recent disaster, people are angry because they noticed a clear gap between the information and the preparedness effort.

“It’s true we were not well-equipped to deal with this kind of situation in terms of resources and trained manpower,” Bhattrai claimed. “We did our part, doing what we could within our capacity.”

Is it exacerbated by climate change?

In recent years, scientists have said that climate change is altering the amount and timing of rainfall across Asia. However, the impact of floods has increased due to the built environment, including unplanned construction, especially on floodplains, which leaves insufficient areas for water retention and drainage.

A recent report published in Nature Communications states that Asia’s exposure to extreme rain and flood risk will grow by 2030.

“Definitely, there is much to do in terms of effective disaster communication and actionable preparedness, but it is also a fact that these kinds of events are becoming more frequent because of climate change,” Bhattrai said. “We are planning to lay our case at the upcoming UN climate conference (COP29) to secure more resources to deal with future disasters.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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

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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

 

World Governments, NGOs Announce $350m Investments in Sexual and Reproductive Health Services

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Population

Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director. Credit: UNFPA

Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director. Credit: UNFPA

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2024 (IPS) – On the heels of the Summit of the Future and the sidelines of the United Nations High-Level Meeting Week, governments and philanthropies pledged to commit at least USD 350 million to boost family planning, sexual and reproductive health and supplies on the national and global level. As enshrined in the newly-adopted Pact for the Future, seeking new international finance models is critical to solving the issues that the world faces today. The decision to pledge forward is a demonstration of commitment to ongoing health issues.

On September 24, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Family Planning 2030 (FP2030) and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) invited prominent figures across the private, development and government sectors to promote political will on the matter of sustainable investments towards sexual and reproductive health (SRH). 

“Investing in reproductive health supplies is a ‘best buy’ for development, empowering women, improving maternal and newborn health outcomes, and uplifting economies,” said Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director.

When speaking on UNFPA’s partnerships with the co-organizers, Kanem remarked: “What we’re doing is transforming lives. The life of a girl in her community, the life of an adolescent in her city, and empowering communities and families to be able to harness and take control of their futures.”

“So much of our world has been made possible by family planning,” said Dr. Samukeliso Dube, Executive Director of FP2030. “By enabling more women to shape their lives and futures, family planning has helped women to finish their education, join the workforce, ascend to leadership positions, and achieve their dreams.”

Donor countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, and Spain, announced pledges to the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, which delivers modern contraceptives and maternal health supplies to women and girls in low-income countries. Through this partnership, UNFPA has helped to prevent 1.6 million child deaths, 254,000 maternal deaths, and 2.6 million unsafe abortions. The contributions to UNFPA could potentially save up to 9000 women and girls worldwide. As Anneliese Dodds, UK Minister for Development and Women and Inequalities, remarked, investing in SRH was “critical to making sure that women have the power.”

Speakers representing their countries’ governments pledged their support through domestic financial investments. The governments of Madagascar, Nepal, and the Kyrgyz Republic, for example, announced domestic financial commitments that would invest in SRH services in their countries.

Madagascar announced a contribution of USD 15 million to procure health supplies through UNFPA. Their minister of public health, Zely Arivelo Randriamanantany, added that their goal was to increase access to contraceptives by over 50 percent. Arzu Rana Deube, foreign minister of Nepal, announced the government’s commitment of USD 600,000 to purchase high-quality contraceptives. Renat Mavlyanbai Uulu, Advisor to the Minister of Health, of the Kyrgyz Republic, announced a commitment of USD 119,000 to domestic resources for family planning commodities.

Feri Anita Wijayanti, a registered midwife from Indonesia. Credit: UN

Feri Anita Wijayanti, a registered midwife from Indonesia. Credit: UNFPA

As UNFPA Chief of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Ayman Abdelmohsen told IPS, the commitments to domestic financing are significant; it shows that in “allocating from their own resources… and [making] budgetary allocations,”  these governments will prioritize SRH without relying on foreign donors. It is in line with UNFPA’s compact agreements with 44 countries, through which countries will build up their capacity to provide comprehensive reproductive health through their own resources.

Despite the predicted growth in contraceptive access and maternal health by 2030, the current financing gap why this is still far off in the future. The gap currently sits at at least USD 1.5 billion in the world’s poorest countries.

Throughout the event, the speakers emphasized the ‘transformative’ power of SRH in countries. That to invest in SRH is to invest in girls’ and women’s’ agency over the health and life choices. In guaranteeing women’s sexual and reproductive health, it pays forward in protecting families and communities. In terms of financing, every dollar spent on family planning can yield more than 8 dollars in benefits for families and societies.

Investing in healthcare also goes forward to the practitioners within the sector. As Feri Anita Wijayanti, a registered midwife from Indonesia, explained to the panel, many communities rely on the expertise of midwives, whose responsibilities extend “far beyond delivering babies,”  for they are at the frontlines to address other health issues.

“Every second in every corner of the world, midwives work tirelessly to protect the lives of women and babies, and to provide sexual and reproductive health services,” she said. Midwives have the power to save an estimated 4.3 million lives each year by 2025. We urge you to invest in us, to believe in the transformative power of midwives and to begin by investing in sexual and reproductive health.”

The commitments made by countries and the private sector are a step forward in closing the considerable financing gap. They come at a time where senior leadership within the UN, namely the Secretary-General, has called for countries to explore innovative and sustainable financing to address global inequalities. The commitments made at this event demonstrate that despite the challenges to SRH, there is political will in support of, and it can be mobilized to ensure this care for all.

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