The Swedish government has notified the African Forest Research Network Afornet of its intention to freeze its 20-year old support over what Sweden's ambassador Ann Dismorr described as “administrative problems in recent years.”Mrs Dismorr announced the decision at a conference organised by the network in Nairobi, but explained that the governance problems in the Nairobi-based organisation arose from its huge area of coverage.”To establish and run a programme like this in approximately 30 countries is not an easy task,” she argued but remained firm that the funding would be stopped.

via allAfrica.com: Africa: Fears Over Planned Cut in Research Funding.

“More meetings does not mean success,” de Boer, who steps down from his UN post on July 1, said today at the Carbon Market Insights conference in Amsterdam. “We need to get down to business.”

The Copenhagen summit in December 2009 was a failure even though it was preceded by many meetings, de Boer said. While about 150 nations agreed to submit plans or targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the meeting failed to produce a global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which lapses in 2012.

“Going back from Copenhagen, I was extremely disappointed,” de Boer said. “My first feeling was it had been an absolute disaster.”

via UN Climate Process ‘Needs a Good Spanking,’ Yvo de Boer Says – BusinessWeek.

Despite pressure from farm state politicians, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken an important step to ensure that biofuels help rather than hurt the environment. Under new guidelines, biofuels produced at new facilities — including ethanol from corn, sugar, plants and other sources — must achieve at least a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional gasoline.

via Editorial – Sensible Rules for Ethanol – NYTimes.com.

Despite pressure from farm state politicians, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken an important step to ensure that biofuels help rather than hurt the environment. Under new guidelines, biofuels produced at new facilities — including ethanol from corn, sugar, plants and other sources — must achieve at least a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional gasoline.

via Editorial – Sensible Rules for Ethanol – NYTimes.com.

Contrary to popular perception, indigenous or local communities have intimate knowledge of their environment (soils, water, forest, flora, fauna, etc), and most of their decisions and actions are informed by this knowledge-base.

The landscape within which indigenous knowledge can efficiently be used to support adaptation and mitigation action is heavily degraded, this is a reality we all need to wake up to

Indigenous or local knowledge is the basis for local-level decision-making in many rural communities. It has value not only for the culture in which it evolves, but also for scientists and planners striving to improve conditions in rural localities.

Over time, human relationship with nature has produced complex knowledge systems, which are responsive to change, self regenerating as well as being multidimensional in nature. The close knit association between this knowledge systems and ecosystems offers us the greatest opportunity to understand how humans respond to change. This is crucial especially now that we are faced with a major environmental crisis related to climate change.

Incorporating indigenous knowledge into climate change policies can lead to the development of effective adaptation strategies that are cost-effective, participatory and sustainable (IPCC). However, the papers in this publication point out that the ecological space within which indigenous knowledge can effectively be used for adaptation has severely been degraded. They also highlight the continued and existing threat from development practices including those meant to assist in the processes of adaptation and mitigation.

The papers explore the role of the indigenous knowledge from two extreme ecological systems; the wet ecological systems of Vietnam and Bangladesh to the dry to semi arid ecosystems of Kenya. The three country case studies show that, often linear solutions have been designed to resolve issues or problems that are multidimensional in nature. This approach has more or less tended to shift the temporal problem and transferring the inherent risks to solitary ecological units or to whole ecosystems. This in turn degrades the active role of indigenous or local knowledge systems.

There is an emerging trend on how the role of indigenous or local knowledge systems has been systematically marginalised through developmental interventions over time in the Global South.

Copenhagen is closer:  developed countries must put climate financing on the table

Governments must move beyond the rhetoric of the past few days to quicken the pace of global climate change negotiations which begin in Bangkok from Monday 28 September, to avoid plunging millions of people further into poverty, Oxfam International said today.

The UN climate change negotiations, which continue until Friday 9 October, will come hot on the heels of G20 talks in Pittsburgh and will take place in one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the world, the Asia-Pacific.

Copenhagen is closer:  developed countries must put climate financing on the table

Governments must move beyond the rhetoric of the past few days to quicken the pace of global climate change negotiations which begin in Bangkok from Monday 28 September, to avoid plunging millions of people further into poverty, Oxfam International said today.

The UN climate change negotiations, which continue until Friday 9 October, will come hot on the heels of G20 talks in Pittsburgh and will take place in one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the world, the Asia-Pacific.

It is true that democracy based on majority view is also a form of oppresion especially against minorities.  The same can be said about knowledge.  Knowledge consolidated in the hands and minds of a few,  can result in a legitimised form of oppression.  This is becoming evident in the area of climate change  within the promoted  complex mechanisms and processes meant to comprehensively deal with this global phenomenon.

A few terms have become synonymous with “climate change”- REDD, COP15, Adaptation and Mitigation- especially linked to local communities and how they can be integrated into the climate change framework. A few well placed leaders, NGOs, CBOs etc have been at the forefront of calling for action and demanding for resources to facilitate the engagement with these “terms”.

The biggest gainers at the present moment are those armed with the knowledge about where resources can be accessed (for training, workshops, meetings, conventions etc), and this happens to be a minority of leaders among the disadvantaged and marginalised local groups and communities (real or imagined).  There is nothing wrong with the crop of leaders attending and being part of the “global party”, but there is everything wrong when this is being done in the name of the marginalised, but with a clearly misplaced agenda- accumulating resources for a few individuals. We need to draw an ethical line when dealing with climate change…….where is that line?

“There is no reason why Africa cannot be self-sufficient when it comes to food” Barack Obama, President of USA- July 2009.

Agriculture has proved more resilient to the global crisis than other sectors, according to the annual Agricultural Outlook report, published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Although the scenario varies by commodity, the sector as a whole is expected to be relatively better off because of the recent period of high incomes and income-elastic demand for food.

Downstream sectors are still having difficulties to access credit, liquidity is low, and trade finance remains constrained, the report says, but the agricultural sector seems to be withstanding the recession fairly well.

For the next 10 years, average prices for agricultural products are projected at or above levels of the decade prior to the 2007-08 peaks. Prices for vegetable oils, for example, are expected to increase by about 30%, and crop prices by 10% to 20%. While meat prices are not expected to surpass the average, dairy prices are expected to be only slightly higher.

Prospects for the biofuel markets remain uncertain, mainly because of unpredictable factors such as the future trend in crude oil prices, changes in policy interventions and developments in second-generation technology. As long as crude oil prices remain between $60 and $70 per barrel, the report says, biofuels will also be struggling against fossil fuels.