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Showing posts with label International Institute for Environment and Development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Institute for Environment and Development. Show all posts

Sunday, March 30, 2014

IPCC report highlights threats of climate change to people says Toulmin


The Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, Dr Camilla Toulmin, has commended the IPCC latest report on climate change, saying it exposes threats to people and prosperity, reports NaijaAgroNet.

“The new IPCC report highlights the threats climate change poses to people’s peace and prosperity,” he said in a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet.

According to Dr. Toulmin, it shows that countries, communities and companies must act fast to adapt to the changing climate, but it also shows too that there are limits to adaptation and this drives home the urgency of global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Toulmin told NaijaAgroNet that its high-time for unprecedented global solidarity and cooperation.

“Now is the opportunity for true leaders to shine. Some of the world’s least developed countries are already forging ahead,” Toulmin said.

For Dr. Toulmin, Ethiopia has committed to carbon-neutral development. Bangladesh has invested US$10 billion of its own money to adapt to extreme climatic events.

Just as Nepal is the first country to develop adaptation plans at the community level, insisting “It is time for the richer countries to pull their weight and do the right thing, by investing at home and abroad in actions that can reduce emissions and protect people and property from danger.”


The climate, Dr. Toulmin reminded that though the world is in this together and that shows “we can only solve this problem as a united international community.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Sunday, December 1, 2013

COP19 lacks climate justice says IIED


The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has reacted to the outcome of the recently held 19th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP19) in Warsaw, Poland, saying it lacks sense of climate justice, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The COP19 — the 19th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change -- ended on 23 November. Here, IIED's climate change specialists react to the conference outcomes.

Head, IIED's climate change group, Dr Simon Anderson, informed NaijaAgroNet that there is no sense from the outcomes of Warsaw that climate justice is any closer than before the COP was inaugurated.

The delays, he said, in countries disclosing how they will reduce greenhouse gas emissions continue has continued unabated.
“It would seem that we are moving almost inevitably to a 4C degree warmer world. Having been billed as a climate finance COP, Warsaw failed to deliver,” he said.

Stressing that the need for both finance and disbursal mechanisms that genuinely reflect and respond to the needs of countries and people that need to adapt and become more climate resilient is imperative.

He maintained that in the absence of agreement on a mid-term target and a clear pathway, poor and vulnerable countries are unable to understand how the developed countries are going to deliver the promised target of US$100 billion annually by 2020.

“Looking at decisions related to long term finance, developing countries can see a few gains, but there were reassuring words and little else," he noted.

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Video: Dr Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in IIED's climate change group summarises how COP19 ended and what will happen next. Enjoy!


Sunday, November 24, 2013

Cotula explains how law can make foreign investment work


The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has published a handbook that shows how government officials and civil society organisations in low and middle-income countries can use legal tools to ensure foreign investments contribute to sustainable development.

NaijaAgroNet reports that the book focuses on investments in agriculture and the extractive industries – mining, oil and gas, authored by Dr Lorenzo Cotula.

These sectors, the author said attract much of the foreign investment in many low and middle-income countries. Increased investment could transform local economies by contributing public revenues and new livelihood opportunities. But the deals can also pile pressure on natural resources and spark conflict with local communities who depend on them.

"Public mobilisation against 'land grabbing' highlights that investment quality, not just quantity, matters a great deal, even in countries where investment is much needed," Dr Cotula said, stressing that legal tools can influence investment quality – from the tax regime to social and environmental safeguards, though to the inclusiveness of investment models and processes.

"There is much that governments and civil society can do to use those tools to promote investments that respond to local aspirations, and to get a better deal from incoming investments," he said.

The handbook, NaijaAgroNet gathered, explained what the laws that regulate foreign investment are, how they work, and how to use them most effectively.

It covers the variety of legal arenas that can influence the outcomes of investments — from investment treaties, extractive industry legislation, land tenure, human rights norms, environmental legislation and tax law —including arrangements to fight tax avoidance.

The book covers four main ways in which government and civil society can use legal tools to promote sustainable development, by:
  • Aligning public policies and decisions on investment with a strategic vision of sustainable development based on local and national aspirations.
  • Ensuring a fair economic deal.
  • Taking social and environmental considerations seriously.
  • Balancing investment protection with competing policy goals.
The handbook aims to support government officials in low and middle-income countries in their management of foreign investment for sustainable development, and support civil society efforts to influence decisions and hold government and investors to account.

Governments play a central role in developing and enforcing legal rules. But Cotula argues that engagement with investment law is not a task for regulators and legal experts alone.


"Harnessing the law to make investment work for sustainable development requires vibrant civil society organisations and social movements to advocate, scrutinise, challenge and influence," writes Cotula. "Perhaps most importantly, it requires citizens themselves to be able to appropriate and wield legal tools in their efforts to shape their own future."

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Pix: cover of the book

Friday, September 28, 2012

New forest investment guidance to triple returns

A man siting next to a felled tree at the Afi mountain
forest reserve near Ikom, cross River, Nigeria 

Various discussions between investors and forest rights-holders in the recent times have led to a new guideline for investment with the capability of returning three-fold on investments.
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) revealed to NaijaAgroNet in a press statement that the investment guideline if followed will provide livelihood security for local communities and protection for forests.
The guide emanated from eleven meetings organised by The Forests Dialogue (TFD) on behalf of Growing Forest Partnerships and with the support of IIED, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, FAO and the World Bank.
Commenting on the advice on investment in locally-controlled forestry, Gary Dunning of TFD said that the guide shows how investors and forest-dependent community form mutually-beneficial partnerships that would deliver social, environmental and economic gains.
The meetings have in attendance indigenous people, family foresters, researchers, government representatives, investment bankers, donors and philanthropists to share views on the role of investment in the forest sector.
The new guidelines, according to IIED is a representation of the insights of the meetings' participants with many case studies from across the globe showing how investment in locally-controlled forestry offers investors secure access, reduced risks and better long term management opportunities and an evidence of social and environmental sustainability.
The lead author of the guide, Dominic Elson said investing in locally controlled forestry not only leads to improved economic outcomes but it also leads to an improvement in the political economy in a way that can help governments of developing countries to shift into a more sustainable, low-carbon development path.
The guide looks in detail at how to encourage a happy marriage between ‘enabling investments’ that prepare the ground for commercial success and ‘asset investments’ that seek a return, usually as profit or products.
The leader of the team that produced the guide, Chris Buss of IUCN said strong businesses generate profits worthy of asset investment, “But growing those businesses may need enabling investments from NGOs, philanthropists or governments for infrastructure, capacity building or to secure and formalise commercial forest rights."
Another contributor to the guide, Duncan Macqueen of IIED that forests provide livelihoods for a billion people, adding that “About a quarter of the world’s forests are locally controlled, by members of three major alliances of indigenous peoples, forest communities and private family smallholders."
Macqueen revealed that forests also provide goods and services worth $75 - $100 billion annually, stressing "What’s missing is the investment that can boost these benefits in a sustainable way and put local people in the driving seat.”

Yinka Awosanya/LS


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