by Alice Thomas

I’m sitting in the mayor’s office in Abala, a town of about 10,000 people in Niger, West Africa. Niger is the poorest of the nine countries that comprise the Sahel, a belt that stretches across northern Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea bounded by the Sahara desert to the north.

Food insecurity and malnutrition are chronic in Niger. But things this year are worse. For the third time in just seven years, Abala and the surrounding areas have been especially hard hit by poor rains and low agriculture yields that have left a mind-boggling 16 million people across the Sahel without sufficient food.

But it is neither the recurrent drought nor the lack of food that has brought me to Abala today. Less than a mile from here, 9,000 Malian refugees are camped. They started coming in January when Tuareg separatist groups, having returned well-armed from Libya, mounted a rebellion in northern Mali.  The Mali refugees who fled to Abala are mainly pastoralists, and many have brought their animals with them. Two thousand head of livestock are now registered at the camp.

I ask the mayor how he feels about the refugees whose population will soon outnumber that of the local inhabitants. “They are our brothers and sisters. We welcome them with open arms. They need our help and we will share with them what we have.”  Given the fragile landscape and scarce resources, I am floored by the conviction and magnanimity of his response.

Getting sufficient food and water to the people of Abala – and the livestock on which many depend for their survival – are significant challenges that existed long before the arrival of the refugees. But now the influx of thousands of new arrivals has put significant additional burden on these host areas. Because there is no potable water in Abala, water has to be trucked in daily to meet the burgeoning demands of the refugees. While aid agencies are in the process of drilling wells in order to provide a local source of water to both refugees and the local community, so far they’ve been unsuccessful, turning up nothing but salty water.

The cooperation between host communities and refugees, and the efforts by humanitarian agencies to juggle the needs of both, is encouraging. Yet while minimum needs are being met, I can’t help but wonder how long the government and the international community can continue to depend on the good will of the people of Abala.

Three weeks from now, the rainy season will start, and getting food and water to this remote area will become a serious challenge (there are no paved roads to Abala). And the impact of the refugees on this fragile landscape is already being felt in terms of deforestation and loss of available pasture. Already people must spend an average three hours a day in search of firewood. With more refugees arriving daily, and as these resources grow even scarcer as the region enters the leanest months of the year, there is serious risk that tensions between and among local populations and refugees could increase.

Humanitarian funding to support the Malian refugees who have fled to Niger and other neighboring countries has been limited and is quickly running out.  But equally disturbing is the lack of international attention and response to the broader human insecurity in the region, and the unwillingness of donors to seriously confront the more systemic and growing problems that plague the Sahel. Chronic poverty and malnutrition are being compounded by more frequent and extreme droughts and crops failures.

Back in Niger’s capitol, Niamey, I meet with the head of an international NGO that has been responding to both the food crisis and now the Mali refugees. We discuss the recurrence of climate-related disasters in the Sahel, and the fact that these crises are falling closer and closer to each other — leaving vulnerable populations with less and less time to recover before the next shock hits. “No one here is thinking beyond six months, or a year. No one wants to put time and money into the long-term problems facing the region.”

While donors claim to be increasing the “resiliency” of vulnerable  populations to withstand and rebound from more frequent climate extremes, there is little evidence that resilience programs are being implemented at the scale and scope necessary to  address the overwhelming counter-pressures of climate change and population growth. Short-term humanitarian funding is necessary, of course, to prevent pushing vulnerable populations over the brink. But emergency response funds are insufficient in timescales and amounts to effectively address the far deeper threats to the Sahel.

It’s time for the international community to stop ignoring what’s happening here.

Alice Thomas is the Climate Displacement Program Manager for Refugees International.

Related Post:

• Mali: Migration, Militias, Coups And Climate Change

Children and mothers await food at distribution site in Mogadishu (Photo: Enough / Laura Heaton)

Communities across Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya suffered severely from the 2011 drought and famine; tens of thousands of people died. Somalia was the epicenter of this human tragedy, largely because conflict and the severe policies of the militant group al-Shabaab undercut the traditional coping strategies Somalis use to deal with extreme weather and also cut off these vulnerable communities from humanitarian aid.

The relief effort in Mogadishu suffered from lack of access and ongoing insecurity, but unlike in most other parts of the country, Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, or TFG, had unparalleled control there. And yet the city was mired in some of the most acute suffering, and famine was persistent, even as the United Nations rolled back the famine classification for other Somali regions.

Through interviews conducted primarily in settlements of displaced people who fled to Mogadishu from the surrounding regions at the height of the famine, Enough found:

“[I]nsecurity, inadequate oversight for distribution of humanitarian assistance, and wholesale criminality combined to create a situation where beneficiaries often didn’t see the relief intended for them, security services involved in distribution committed abuses with impunity, and aid flowed instead into the pockets of corrupt Somali officials—all issues that primarily fall to the TFG to address.”

The field dispatch, “Somalia Famine Relief: A View from Mogadishu,” presents individual testimonies from displaced people, highlights some important details about the scope of the suffering in Mogadishu, and features the Somali prime minister’s startling denial of famine in the city, just a day before the U.N. announced a massive new appeal for funds.

“Recent attention to Somalia generated by the high-level conference in London in February and by the reported successes of joint military operations targeting al-Shabaab leaves the impression that important changes are afoot. There are,” the field dispatch states. “But without some dramatic changes in the way the country is governed and humanitarian issues are handled, Somalia remains prone to the next iteration of al-Shabaab, coming in to fill the void, and donors’ contributions to assist Somalis most in need continue to risk falling into the hands of those who benefit from Somalia’s chaos.”

Cross-posted from the Enough Project.

Enough has more on the campaign.

Coup leaders announcing seizure of power on television

Once established at the broadcast center, the Malian troops, calling themselves the “CNRDR” or National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State, announced that they’d seized control and suspended the consitution.

Watch a video of the coup announcement:

Soldiers’ celebratory gunfire reportedly rang out in the capitol through this morning, apparently defying orders. Reports emerged of looting at the presidential palace. An initial report that the president, Amadou Toumani Touré, took refuge at the U.S. embassy is in dispute.

International condemnation came swiftly. The African Union condemned the coup, as did the European Union.

The U.S. State Department — whose websites’s Mali country profile lauds “excellent and expanding” relations “based on shared goals of strengthening democracy and reducing poverty” — released a statement condemning the military moves and calling for a swift return to constitutional rule:

The United States condemns the military seizure of power in Mali…. We call for calm and the restoration of the civilian government under constitutional rule without delay, so that elections can proceed as scheduled. We stand with the legitimately elected government of President Amadou Toumani Touré.

An American in Mali reports on his blog that the embassy there sent out warning SMS messages. The blogger, anthropologist Bruce Whitehouse, wrote:

Three SMS messages from the US Embassy just received: “continue to shelter in place,” and “please prepare for possible service outages: water, electricity, internet”. Another announces that the airport has been closed.

Touré was expected to step down before elections late next month. Tensions rose between the civilian government and the military over supply levels to battle the Touareg rebellion in the country’s north, and general management of that crisis and a protest movement in the south.

Blogger Alex Thurston, an Africa scholar, analyzed some initial reports, makes comparisons and puts the coup in context. “Looking forward,” he wrote, “the fate of the elections and the fate of the war in the north will be paramount concerns. How will the new leaders (or Toure, if he stays) shift the government’s political strategy in the north?”

Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony

While #Kony2012 is trending on Twitter, the exploitative campaign video has also generated a steady stream of scathing comments from the wonkier among us. A broad range of experts — professors of African history, humanitarian policy advisors, and foreign policy bloggers — have expressed some very legitimate concerns about some factual errors and misrepresentations in the video that Invisible Children would be wise to address.

Additionally, a cringe inducing photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with automatic weapons in South Sudan indicates a worrisome propensity for juvenile antics instead of serious policy. Indeed, it might make for a cool scrapbook photo, but it is sophomoric for an organization that deals with life and death issues.

To be clear, factual ambiguity, exaggeration or oversimplification is an unacceptable practice. It doesn’t help the cause and in some cases can actually cause harm to those we’re trying to help as advocates are ill-informed and/or confused.

Nonetheless, over the last few years we’ve seen a number of self-declared policy experts eager to attack advocacy efforts of any stripe whether it relates to Sudan, the LRA, or any other pressing international issue. The idea that Americans can only speak out if they have 20 years of experience on the ground is as silly as it is undemocratic. Citizens have every right to express concerns about a tragedy far from our shores while expecting that appropriate expertise will be brought to bear by their elected officials.

Invisible Children have never been cut from the traditional Washington cloth — their advocacy is designed to appeal to young Americans. The group’s strength lies in their ability to connect with folks outside the beltway about something that doesn’t have a direct or immediate impact on American lives. To this end, Invisible Children has succeeded. They’ve connected with and inspired millions of Americans to be active and engaged on an issue that has historically been on the periphery, at best, of American foreign policy priorities.

Their grassroots mobilization contributed overwhelmingly to the passage of The 2009 LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act — the most widely cosponsored bill Africa-related piece of legislation in the last 37 years — and more generally to the ongoing prioritization the LRA throughout State and USAID, as well as to the President’s decision to deploy U.S. military advisors to central Africa. Of equal importance is that Invisible Children also supports an innovative radio program in the remote regions of eastern Congo. This program collects information about LRA movements, abductions, and defections and is often better and more up-to-date than the information obtained by the United States government.

So, instead of continuing to debate the strengths and weakness of the Kony2012 video, or attack Invisible Children for their lack of financial transparency, let’s figure out how to turn this momentum into a constructive opportunity that can result in smart policies that will have a positive, real-time impact in the affected areas of central Africa. Let’s harness this energy and turn it into something productive that ensures we’re telling the right stories, inspiring well-informed advocacy, and working together across governments, academia, grassroots activists, and local populations to help bring this chapter of the LRA — and the impact in affected areas — to a close.

Sudan People's Liberation Army-North rebels (photo: Trevor Snapp - Global Post)

At the same time, however, violence on a much larger scale is hitting Sudan’s “new south”: Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States. Fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) has forced tens of thousands of people to flee to Ethiopia and South Sudan. Nearly as many have been internally displaced and face dire food shortages.

Displacement is a growing problem in the region, and aid groups face immense challenges providing enough emergency food and care to support the displaced population. Bombing and fighting in the area have prevented local families from cultivating their crops, and a poor harvest in November left food stocks even lower than usual. The most insidious problem, however, is the aid blockade imposed by Khartoum.

The government’s refusal to allow international aid agencies (both UN and private) into its territory is putting tens of thousands of lives at risk. Only the Sudanese Red Crescent, seen as neither impartial nor capable of handling the needs of civilians in government and SPLM-N areas, has been allowed to enter the area.

The U.N. and countries including the United States have tried to shift Khartoum and stave off a humanitarian disaster. In recent weeks, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the U.N.’s top humanitarian official both visited Sudan and pressed Omar al-Bashir’s government for greater access. But neither visit was successful in opening Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile to desperately needed assistance.

Khartoum is clearly in bunker mode. Feeling that it was not sufficiently “rewarded” for allowing South Sudan to break away, it is now wary of any incentives the West might offer for opening up these war-torn states. It is also keen to avoid a second Darfur, where Khartoum saw humanitarian assistance as merely a friendly façade for Western meddling. More than that, Bashir’s regime sees the aid blockade in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile as another way to force the SPLM-N to surrender for the sake of suffering civilians.

Given the dire need in these two states and the lack of movement by Sudan, some in the U.S. are now calling for forced access to Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile – whereby food and medical supplies might be flown or trucked into the two areas against Khartoum’s will. Certainly, the need is clear; but leaving aside the prospect of Sudanese military retaliation, the practicalities of such a move are thorny indeed. Dropping aid from the air would be incredibly costly, and it’s unclear how the supplies would be distributed once the aid hits the ground. Meanwhile, the land routes from South Sudan into Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan are either impassible or go through Khartoum-held areas. Ethiopia, another possible entry point, would be wary of provoking Khartoum by cooperating with such a plan.

For the time being, Khartoum’s recklessness and intransigence is certain to push more families from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile into South Sudan and Ethiopia – adding to the over 100,000 Sudanese refugees already there. Those who can’t flee will face even more danger and deprivation; many will surely die.

As humanitarians, we continue to hope that this time Khartoum will prove its critics wrong; that this time it will welcome assistance and not endanger thousands of lives out of pique. But after years of disappointment, it is hard to expect anything better from Sudan. And the fear is that the most the world can do is prepare for the human tragedy that is about to unfold.

KI-MOON: Let me mention one form of discrimination that has been ignored or even sanctioned by many states for far too long, discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.  This has prompted some governments to treat people as second-class citizens, or even criminals. Confronting this discrimination is a challenge.  But we must live up to the ideals of the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights].

Ki-Moon’s remarks reflect last month’s report from the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission about the importance of decriminalizing homosexuality and protecting LGBT people from discrimination. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also recently called on nations to treat “gay rights as human rights” and end all forms of persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Many African countries with anti-gay laws have rebuffed efforts by the U.S. and Britain to improve their policies, defending the role of religion in their societies and decrying gay rights as a “Western invention.”

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s landmark incursion into Somalia last October and ongoing military operations present some important opportunities and disquieting potential pitfalls for establishing lasting security in a region controlled by the al Qaeda-linked jihadi group al-Shabaab.

The nearly three-month long intervention is the Kenyan army’s first-ever offensive across its borders. The commotion after Kenyan soldiers crossed over into Somalia and, reportedly, then sought approval from the Somalia’s transitional federal government compounded questions about the army’s experience. It also accentuated concerns about upsetting the fragile arrangements that have enabled Kenya to, for the most part, avoid being a target of Shabaab’s deadly attacks.

But beyond the viability of the military campaign to rout a brutal militant group that has employed devastating insurgency tactics against peacekeepers and soldiers more familiar with the terrain, the question of what comes next looms even larger.

“Intervention strategies that plan the war but not the peace will fail,” Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus warned in a policy paper published last Friday by the Enough Project.

“Indifference to or wishful thinking about the crafting of a post-intervention political order guarantees disorder, and can leave both the occupied country and the intervening power worse off than before.”

The stakes of the military operation against Shabaab this time around cannot be overstated. If the current campaign fails to dramatically undercut −− if not wholly defeat−− Shabaab, the situation will be even worse, as a longtime Somalia watcher here remarked to Enough recently: “Shabaab will look invincible.”

The responsibility for coming up with the post-intervention plan lies squarely with Somali leaders and authorities but will require strong diplomatic efforts and coordination by international partners, wrote Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College. In particular, non-Somali actors must press for a governing plan that does not see the potential prizes of the operation against Shabaab −− most significantly, the lucrative and hotly contested port city of Kismayo −− divvied up along clan lines. Menkhaus explained:

The Kenyan government cannot facilitate this kind of Somali dialogue alone −− this requires broader diplomatic engagement by key donor governments from the West, the Islamic world, the United Nations, the African Union, and regional external actors. The details of a governing arrangement need to be hammered out by Somalis, not foreigners, but the general principle of open access is something external actors can and should insist on.

Kenyan officials have expressed a variety of goals for their intervention, but they boil down to the core desire for a friendlier Somali-Kenya border area — a plan long in the works, according to U.S. cables published by Wikileaks about the Kenyan government’s training of soldiers for the operation. To increase the likelihood of success, Menkhaus advises pursuing three key objectives:

(1) creating a buffer zone of peaceful, cooperative communities along the border to temper the militant al-Shabaab factions in their midst;

(2) advocating for a Jubbaland regional state that would at first exclusively
serve the important role of ensuring that local communities are represented in national institutions (in contrast to the administrative role of the Puntland and Somaliland governments); and

(3) brokering an inclusive deal and “cosmopolitan strategy” for the governing of
Kismayo, including establishing an international customs authority at the port to generate revenue for public works projects, support a lean civil service, and set an example for good management of public funds.

“Though there are good reasons to second-guess the Kenyan military intervention, it could produce an unexpected and rare window of opportunity in Kismayo,” Menkhaus wrote. “That opportunity will be missed unless diplomatic initiatives get underway immediately.”

Likewise, failure to plan for post-intervention governance in southern Somalia risks undoing any security gains the various allied forces can produce, rendering the new terrorism risks assumed by tourist-friendly Kenya pointless.

[T]he government’s information minister, Given Lubinda, assured that the country’s leaders would not bow to outside pressure to respect and tolerate homosexuality in the nation. He reminded western nations about the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Accra Agenda of Action, which guide development aid distribution and do not mention acceptance of same-sex marriage as the basis for offering aid to the poor nations. Rev. Gibson Nyirenda, spokesman for the Pentecostal bishops’ council, urged Zambia to reject any donor aid that comes with conditions.

“For us as a nation, we cannot go in that direction because it is indecent and can erode our morals as society. Let’s remain a Christian nation by ignoring such assistance,” Rev Nyirenda said.

Homosexuality is considered a felony in Zambia, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, although the country’s constitution does include a general non-discrimination clause and few have been prosecuted for the “crime.”

During her landmark speech in Geneva, Clinton specifically addressed the concerns of religions leaders. “For many of us, religious belief and practice is a vital source of meaning and identity, and fundamental to who we are as people,” she said. “And likewise, for most of us, the bonds of love and family that we forge are also vital sources of meaning and identity. And caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human. It is because the human experience is universal that human rights are universal and cut across all religions and cultures.”

8. Canada Weather Bomb

On December 8: Hurricane-force winds in a fast-moving “weather bomb” system, including 92 mph gusts, knocked out power for 68,000 people in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Heavy snowfall blanketed north New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, forcing schools to close.

7. Scotland Weather Bomb

December 8: Severe winds of up to 165 mph from another weather bomb battered Scotland and northern England, forcing hundreds of schools to close, destroying a giant wind turbine, and leaving more than 56,000 people without power. “The storm’s winds were so strong as its pressure dropped by 44mb, almost double the qualifying amount for a weather bomb, in the 24 hours to 6am this morning. The winds today were stronger than the 80mph gusts seen when Hurricane Katia hit in September.”

6. Los Angeles Santa Ana Windstorm

November 30: A powerful, late-season Santa Ana windstorm with gale-force gusts “left much of the Los Angeles area strewn with toppled trees and downed power lines on Thursday, slowing rush-hour traffic,” canceling hundreds of flights, and knocking out electricity to over 430,000 residents. “Public schools in Pasadena and 11 other districts in San Gabriel Valley, northeast of Los Angeles, were closed for the day.” Thousands are still without power.

5. Colombia Landslide Kills Family

December 5: “Heavy rains set off a landslide that swept over a home in central Colombia, flattening it and killing seven members of the same family.” “Five women and two young girls died in the disaster, which was caused by heavy rains in the Herveo municipality. The husband of one of the women survived.”

4. Killer Kenya Floods

December 2: “Three children were killed in a landslide as the rains drenching the country continue to wreak havoc. Thousands more have been forced to flee flooded homes.” A total of 14 people have been killed as bridges and roads have been washed away in “some of the heaviest rainfall it has seen in 50 years.” Meanwhile, crippling drought continues in northern Kenya.

3. Record Colombia Floods Cause Bus-Burying Mudslide

On December 8, a Columbia mudslide swallowed a bus, killing six. “One of the victims managed to call for help by cellphone and told relatives she was trapped before she died, said Cesar Uruena, rescue director for the Colombian Red Cross. The five other victims of the accident Wednesday night included a police officer and the bus driver and his young son, Uruena said.” Heavy rains flooded about 3,500 homes south of Bogota, with waters up to 5 feet deep in places. “Up to 10,000 people have been affected by the floods and the cresting of Bogota’s river.” Columbia’s unrelenting rains have caused at least 127 deaths since September.

2. Indonesia Landslide Kills 35

November 30: “Heavy rains triggered the landslide on the island of Nias, burying at least 37 houses.” Thirty-five people were killed. “Heavy rains the past three days had caused the hill to crumble. We are now still trying to pull out trapped victims from the landslide,” district disaster management agency official Robertna Mendeva told AFP on December 1. “It’s difficult as it is still raining very heavily now.”

1. Durban’s Killer Climate-Talk Floods

November 28: Ten people along South Africa’s east coast were killed, 700 houses destroyed, and thousands left homeless following torrential rains that struck the city hosting the international climate talks. The destruction was worst in the shack towns that surround Durban, highlighting the vulnerability of the poor to climate disasters.

This year’s climate devastation has shattered records. There have been 14 billion-dollar climate disasters in the United States alone, causing damages cost at least $53 billion. The floods in Thailand were that nation’s worst “Weather-related catastrophes in Asia have more than tripled over the last 30 years,” Munich Re reports. “In China alone, weather-related disasters have more than quadrupled since 1980.”

Despite the exponentially growing damages fueled by exponentially growing carbon pollution, the world’s top polluters — China and the United States — have insisted that new steps to cut carbon won’t happen before 2020.

As the climate talks unfold in Durban, South Africa, farmers all over the world are feeling the impact of extreme weather exacerbated by a warming planet.

Changing weather patterns, especially rainfall, are having disastrous affects on global crops. Last year in the Caribbean, banana and vegetable crops were hit hard by months of drought followed by torrential rains that resulted in flooding. The story is the same in Southern Africa. Droughts and erratic rainfall in the South African desert are destroying the Redbush tea plant, known by its Afrikaner name Rooibos. In other areas of the world, a range of agricultural products like coffee, chocolate, peanuts, and pumpkins are all being harmed by extreme weather.

But farmers in Africa — a continent that would be worst hit by climate change — are not idly sitting by. Protesting outside the Durban climate talks, members of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly are expressing their frustration with international inaction on climate:

“We’ve come to join other rural women farmers from the southern African region,” said Thandiure Chidararume, a member of ActionAid, an international organization that helped bring together this meeting of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly. “We have come as one voice from Africa, we are saying no to damning deals, Africa is not for sale, we want this air pollution that is causing climate change to stop now.”

The assembly unites women’s farming and agricultural unions and movements from around the world.

Women from all across Africa, some as far north as Kenya, came out to the rally at a Kawaulu-Natal University in Durban, several kilometers from the downtown convention center where the more subdued, official meetings on climate change are taking place.

The protesters, who also have the support of women’s movements in Latin America, do not believe that government negotiators represent their interests.

They lament the inaction by developed countries, and point to schemes in which biofuel companies or other firms buy land in countries in Africa and Latin America to make money off of trading carbon credits. These land grabs drive people off the land and often don’t reduce carbon emissions. That’s why Mercia Andrews, the director of the South African Trust for Community Outreach and Education, calls the situation “climate apartheid”:

“We have a responsibility, we have to begin to mobilize and we have the power. We have shaken this country before, we brought down apartheid, now is another turn. This is a bigger struggle, a more important struggle and this is a struggle that we must unite around. We must say, ‘No, to climate apartheid, no.’ ”

The concerns are real, said Theresa Marwei, an activist from Zimbabwe.

“I think if we can agree, all the countries that we are here, not to let the air be polluted, because we are having hunger, no water to drink, no gardens, no money to send our children to school because no rain,” she said. “If the rain comes it will be floods, we can’t do anything.”

This group of women representing rural farming interests is just one of many protesting outside the Durban climate talks in an attempt to get negotiators to see the human consequences of their actions.

— Cole Mellino is an intern with the energy team at the Center for American Progress

AP Photo/Chris Gardner

Beware climate change risk from aircon, fridge gases-UN

Soaring use of man-made gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers risks speeding up global warming and industry should adopt alternatives, a U.N. report said on Monday.

In the most dire forecast, unless governments and industry act to limit the growth, the annual emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, by 2050 could equate to pumping nearly 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — about a third of mankind’s CO2 emissions now.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR COMMENT

HFCs have been phased in since the 1990s to replace chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have damaged the Earth’s protective ozone layer and are also very powerful greenhouse gases.

On average, HFCs survive in the atmosphere for 15 years and are about 1,600 times more potent in trapping heat in the air than CO2, underscoring growing alarm about these compounds.

Debate Pits Montana’s Vast Coal Reserves Against Climate Concerns

Several times a day, long trainloads of coal trundle through Missoula to power plants in Washington.

Those routine runs generate lots of electricity for homes and lots of consternation for politicians and scientists concerned about the trade-offs. In the short term, coal’s convenience and low price make it a simple answer to the nation’s energy needs. But its pollution, damage to water supplies and impact on global climate may produce a long-term cost we’re unable to afford.

“Two years ago, the United States was on the verge of adopting a comprehensive climate bill,” said Michael Gerrard, a Columbia Law School climate change expert who visited Missoula last week. “That fell apart, and we now have at best paralysis and at worst an effort to move backward. All this is happening in the face of a stream of new scientific evidence showing the serious worsening of climate problems. And the U.S. is now standing virtually alone in the world among major countries listening to voices that deny the reality of climate change.”

Africa Leads Climate Push as its People Go Hungry

Africa is leading the push for clean energy policy-making as climate change turns millions of its people into “food refugees,” the head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) Achim Steiner said.

“On the African continent, there is sometimes more leadership being shown by countries, by governments, than we see in some of the industrialized nations,” Steiner told Reuters.

“Kenya is currently doubling its energy and electricity generating infrastructure largely using renewables. These are policies that are pioneering, that are innovative,” he said.

Kenya generates most of its energy from hydroelectric dams but water levels have fallen due to recurring drought. It is now investing heavily in geothermal and wind power.

The African Development Bank is financing Africa’s biggest wind farm on the shores of Lake Turkana, one of the windiest places on Earth. The $819-million project aims to produce 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity per year, boosting Kenya’s energy supply by 30 percent.

Toyota and Hyundai are building a fourth geothermal power station in Naivasha, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Nairobi, which will increase geothermal capacity from 115 MW to 395 MW by 2014.

Chevron Takes Full Responsibility for Brazil Oil Spill

U.S. oil company Chevron will fully clean up a spill off Brazil’s coast, George Buck, the CEO of the local subsidiary said on Sunday, taking responsibility for an accident that has become a major test for one of the world’s fastest-growing oil frontiers.

About 18 vessels were supporting well-plugging operations and sheen cleanup, the company said in a later statement, adding that no new oil was being emitted.

Buck said the leak from the undersea well, owned in partnership with Brazil’s state-controlled Petrobras and a Japanese consortium, has been plugged.

“Chevron takes full responsibility for this incident,” Buck told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. “We will share the lessons learned here in the hope that this sort of incident won’t happen again in Brazil or anywhere else in the world.”

The spill, one of the largest to hit Brazil’s growing offshore oil industry has raised questions about its safety and ability to respond to accidents.

Easy loans now a burden for China solar firms

Generous state bank loans to Chinese solar companies, a bone of contention for their Western counterparts, are threatening the financial health of the firms, as they grapple with falling product prices and tumbling demand from their biggest customer, Europe.

The huge funds that flow into China’s solar sector, in which local governments hold stakes, have boosted production in the first half despite fragile demand, depressing product prices and setting off an anti-dumping probe by the United States.

State banks provide easy loans to the sector amid the Chinese government’s push to develop clean energy. Provincial governments that have helped build solar companies are also pressuring banks to continue lending, which may add to the woes of the struggling industry.

The glut of production and swelling inventories of the panels that turn sunlight into electricity have already driven down prices by about 40 percent so far this year. Analysts expect prices to slide by another 10 percent by early next year.

“The longer and larger the Chinese bank lending bubble for solar inflates, the sharper and more unpredictable will the eventual fundamental correction be due to industry consolidation,” Credit Suisse analyst Satya Kumar said.

[HT: JoeMyGod]

Part of [the foreign aid budget] is humanitarian aid around the world. I happen to think it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to borrow money from the Chinese to go give to another country for humanitarian aid. We ought to get the Chinese to take care of the people that are taking that borrowed money today.

Watch it:

What Mitt Romney doesn’t mention is that China already has an active foreign aid policy in Africa. And the aid rarely comes with onerous conditions like anti-corruption measures, government and economic reforms and accountability for how the money is spent. A Council on Foreign Relations report on Chinese efforts to secure access to African oil, says:

International observers say the way China does business—particularly its willingness to pay bribes, as documented by Transparency International, and attach no conditions to aid money—undermines local efforts to increase good governance and international efforts at macroeconomic reform by institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

While western economic aid is frequently criticized for requiring recipients to undergo at times disastrous economic reforms, the Chinese model is aimed toward securing access to natural resources with few strings attached to aid dollars.

A recent Chinese government report on foreign aid in Africa suggests that its aid “falls into the category of south-south cooperation and is mutual help between developing countries,” but critics charge that Chinese aid in Africa has frequently been used to strengthen authoritarian governments and feeds corruption.

After the U.S. abandoned Zaire strongman Mobutu Sese Seko, China stepped in, sending an estimated 1,000 Chinese technicians to work on agriculture and forestry projects in the early 1990s.

And earlier this year, China’s foreign minister pushed for the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe, provided an additional $7.5 million in aid to Robert Mugabe’s government and signed a new bilateral agreement between the two countries.

While Mitt Romney seems to think that encouraging China to take over the U.S.’s humanitarian assistance responsibilities is an easy and cost-free method of cutting the federal budget, he should take a closer look at how U.S. foreign policy interests in Africa might be effected by increasing the influence of Chinese foreign aid.