Monthly Archives: February 2017

Paris Agreement and Local Inclusion

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The Paris Agreement commits governments to climate action. To deliver this agenda successfully, they must engage with all sectors of society, including indigenous peoples, and recognize traditional knowledge.

Many countries have already submitted national climate action plans (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions), and these plans provide a link from the global level down to local action. But if the Paris Agreement is to deliver results, all sectors of society must be engaged in this process.

The legally binding agreement promotes local inclusion in two ways. Firstly, it recognizes the need to involve vulnerable communities and use traditional and local knowledge in adaptation.

Vulnerable communities, whether in urban slums, drylands, mountains or coastal areas lack the resources, power or rights to implement them. Such communities can also play a key role in mitigation because of their low carbon lifestyles and stewardship of forests and other ecosystems. 

Secondly, the agreement acknowledges that parties should “respect, promote and consider” the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities and human rights obligations when taking action to address climate change (preamble). 

Indigenous peoples are among the most vulnerable to climate change because they depend closely on natural resources. Yet their traditional livelihoods are highly adaptive. Having secure rights to the traditional lands and natural resources needed to sustain traditional livelihoods is, therefore, vital for survival in a changing climate. 

The Paris Agreement brings a clear obligation on parties to establish participatory processes that include vulnerable groups and communities, traditional knowledge holders and indigenous peoples. 

Can we transform our cities ?

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Can cities prosper while meeting their responsibilities for acting on climate change? The importance of well-governed cities for prosperity and health is increasingly recognized, especially in a world where most cities are expanding rapidly. Now, city governments also have to address climate change.

Most of the discussions on implementing, financing and monitoring the new development agenda, described in the Sustainable Development Goals, focus on the role of national governments and international agencies.

The city studies also highlight the synergies between good development, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation. All three are about identifying and acting on local risks (to life, health, livelihoods and assets). All three need to be rooted in engagement with those who are most at risk.

What needs to change to encourage and support city governments to reach transformative adaptation? There need to be strong local democracies that respond to the needs of those most at risk (and that have the capacity to do so).

Effective local governments who respond to the needs of their populations have set the ground work for providing the technical, institutional and financial foundations for climate change adaptation.

There also needs to be a recognition of how difficult it is to separate ‘development’ and ‘climate change adaptation’ and how much good development provides the foundation for adaptation. And a recognition that climate change adaptation and mitigation are not a constraint to economic success – indeed they are key to protecting it.

This raises the need for some fundamental changes in international funding agencies. Most global goals depend on the sum of successful local actions. So funding agencies need to build their capacity to support local innovation, local knowledge, and local capacity to assess and to act.

We can envisage cities on our finite planet that are inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. We even have examples of cities that show what is possible.

Water and sanitation

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Access to clean water and sanitation has been a very big challenge in the globe. Many people in the globe have limited access to the clean drinking water and sanitation.According to the research report , only 1.5 % of home birth in developing countries involve safe water , poor sanitation, and hygiene. Only 4 million people in 9 countries have safe clean water and sanitation for generations. Clean water and good sanitation system are possible when every person performs their role in the environment. A few years ago the water and sanitation system were not good but now it is a little bit improved. By the use of latest technology, the cleanliness of water is possible by using filtration plants.We should use filtered plants in our homes, schools, road, colleges and everywhere. Dirty water can cause many diseases like fever, stomach problems, and many other diseases. According to a survey, one child dies every single minute from diarrheal disease caused by contaminated water and poor sanitation. There are more deaths than HIV/AIDS, MALARIA, and TUBERCHOLOROSIS. 

                    In Pakistan,  there are many countries in which there is limited access to clean drinking water.I have the heard the news on television that Karachi have a great problem of water.The clean water is not available to the people and there is also a poor sanitation system. So Karachi government should try to solve this problem because drinking clean water is the fundamental right of everyone. Approximately 90% of the water in developing countries is discharged directly into rivers, lakes, and seas. There is the tremendous economic gain that can be realized with improved drinking water and sanitation.

 

Water as a Source of Income

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Water covers 70% of Earth’s surface. Yet only a tiny fraction of Earth’s water is the accessible freshwater we need to live, grow food, sustain the environment, and power our cities and jobs. Growing cities and populations and a changing climate are placing unprecedented pressures on water. According to the World Economic Forum, water crises are among the top risks to global economic growth. For at least 650 million people, even the water they are able to find is unsafe.

But this also offers an opportunity to provide safer water and better manage our water resources for a more resilient future.In Africa, an estimated 40 billion working hours are spent fetching water, usually by women (UN Development Programme). Better access to safer water frees up time, enhances health and offers the potential for new opportunities.

Most job creators rely heavily on water for their day to day business, if not as an actual ingredient in the products they sell.  Those jobs are dependent on a steady supply of clean water, and thus have a stake in better, more sustainable water resource management. Today, almost half of the word’s 1.5 billion workers are working in water related sectors and nearly all jobs depend on water and those that ensure its safe delivery.

Some products are highlighted that explains the interlinkages between water and economic development.

  • “Analysis, monitoring and evaluation, and special interventions are required to ensure that women benefit from the economic opportunities that water generates.”
  • “In the past five years, more than 50% of the world’s power utility and energy companies have experienced water-related business impacts. At least two-thirds indicate that water is a substantive risk to business operations. As the world’s population reaches 9 billion, competing demand for water from other sectors is expected to grow, potentially exacerbating the issue.
  • “The benefits from meeting the water supply and sanitation (WSS) targets combined equal over US$60 billion annually. The main contributor to benefits from universal coverage of WSS is the value of time savings from closer access and reduced queuing for sanitation and water supply facilities, which account for more than 70% of total benefits globally. ”
  • “Improved Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) access may influence nutrition outcomes by increasing the productivity of home gardens, leading to more nutritious food intake, and enabling more time and resources for caregiving by reducing time spent fetching water and caring for sick children and time and costs associated with seeking health treatment.