"Time is running out for Kiribati"

'Time running out' for Kiribati: president
The low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati is running out of time on
climate change as seas rise, and is drafting plans including mass
relocation of its people while the world procrastinates on the issue,
the country's leader says.
President Anote Tong said areas of Kiribati --
consisting of more than 30 coral atolls, most
only a few metres (feet) above sea level -- had
already been swamped by the rising ocean.
"We've had communities that have had to relocate because their
previous village is submerged, it's no longer there," he told AFP in a
telephone interview from the capital
Tarawa.
"We had a very high tide at the beginning of
this month and communities were washed out. It's becoming more
frequent, time is running out."
Kiribati is among a number of island states --
including Tuvalu, Tokelau and the Maldives --
the UN Human Rights Commission is concerned could become "stateless"
due to climate change.
With erosion gnawing at the coast and crops
dying as sea water infiltrates fresh water
sources, Tong said plans to relocate people from Kiribati to Fiji and
East Timor had been put forward.
He was pessimistic UN climate talks underway
in Doha would offer a solution, saying they
assumed global warming would occur in the
future, allowing countries to stall over emissions targets.
"That's not relevant to us," he said. "The reality is that we're
already facing problems.
"Are the negotiations addressing this? I don't
believe so. They're regarded as a game by
many of the negotiators, they're not focusing
on what's already happening in the most
vulnerable countries.
"We (in Kiribati) are not talking about economic growth, we're not
talking about standards of living -- we're talking about our
very survival."
Rather than wait for global action, Tong said
Kiribati was examining options for the climate-
threatened nation, including relocating parts
of its 103,000-strong population.
The best scenario involves building sea walls and planting mangroves
to repel rising seas,
allowing life in Kirbati to continue much as it has for centuries.
Tong said that was unlikely, with data
released last week finding seas rising quicker
than previous estimates, pointing to a one-
metre (3.25 foot) rise by the end of the century.
Other options involve moving all or part of Kiribati's population elsewhere.
"We have to accept the possibility, the reality,
that some of our people will have to be relocated," Tong said.
"We don't want to allow the nation of Kiribati
to disappear and we have to work out what we do in order to ensure that."
He said the government was set to purchase
2,000 hectare (5,000 acre) of land in Fiji, to
provide food for Kiribati and possibly act as a
new island home.
"We're looking to buy that piece of land as an
investment for food security issues," he said.
"But if all the land we're staying in now (Kiribati) was totally
swamped, maybe it would provide an alternative in the future."
He said impoverished East Timor had also
offered land if needed.
Tong said man-made islands were an expensive option, but remained a
possibility if the global community helped foot the bill to prevent
Kiribati becoming "collateral damage"
to climate change.
"Man-made islands are expensive but climate
change itself is expensive, it could cost the future of this planet," he said.
Tong expects an options paper to be completed early next year, with
detailed costings and engineering reports that could be presented to
potential donors.
He said there was no "D-day" for a decision about relocation, instead
seeking to allow residents a choice about whether to stay or leave.
"To wait for the time when we have no other option but to jump (in the
sea) and swim or go somewhere is unrealistic," he said.
After arguing for urgent action on climate
change at numerous international forums
since winning power in 2003, Tong said he would not attend the Doha talks.
"The question is what to say next to galvanise
the international community into action?" he said. "Sometimes there's
a deep sense of frustration, sometimes a sense of futility.
"We've got to talk to people who will listen, not people who will just
give you an excuse."
However, he remained optimistic the world would help countries such as
Kiribati, which
did not cause climate change but bore the
brunt of its effects.
"I think the citizens of countries have a conscience but they're not
really the ones who make these decisions... It's the governments," he
said.
"We need to keep talking to the people and can't lose faith in
humanity. I refuse to give up on humanity."

Culled from france24.com

Scientists say 15% carbon emissions cut needed

The chances of hitting the UN's global warming target are diminishing, but the goal can still be met if greenhouse-gas emissions fall by 15 percent by 2020, scientists said on Friday.
In a study issued at the world climate talks in Doha, they cautioned against mounting pessimism that the UN's objective of curbing warming to a safer two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is now out of reach.
"Limiting global warming below 2C, or even to below 1.5C, remains technically and economically feasible, but only with political ambitions backed by rapid action starting now," the team said.
"If nothing more is done except the current pledges, costs would be much higher to reach deeper reductions necessary, and/or the damage from climate impacts would be far greater."
In the runup to the 12-day UN talks which opened in Qatar on Monday, the World Bank gave a 20-percent likelihood of a 4C (7.2 F) rise by 2100 and said a 3C (5.4 F) rise appeared likely. Separately, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) forecast a rise of 3-5C (5.4-9.0F) on the basis of current pledges.
"The window for reversing emission trends is rapidly narrowing," the "Climate Action Tracker" report issued on Friday said.
"Emissions must be reduced by roughly 15 percent from present levels by 2020 to be on a pathway holding warming below 2C" by 2100.
At present, emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, blamed for damaging the planet's fragile climate system, are scaling new peaks.
Levels of carbon dioxide -- the single most important man-made contributor to climate change -- rose to 390.9 parts per million in 2011, which is 2.0 ppm higher than in 2010, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Tuesday.
From 1990 to 2011, the warming effect of greenhouse gases has risen 30 percent, it said.
Scrutinising the actions of the four major emitters, the "Climate Action Tracker" said neither China, the United States, the European Union nor Russia were making adequate pledges to tackle their pollution.
But -- with the exception of the United States -- the pledges that they have made are likely to be met, it said.
China has surged in rankings to become the world's No.1 carbon polluter, voraciously burning coal to fuel its rise out of poverty. Right now, China is on track for emissions in 2020 of 14.4 gigatonnes, or billion tonnes, of CO2 or its equivalent, said the report.

Climate Change underway in Doha

About 17,000 delegates expected to attend the latest round of the
climate talks, with carbon permits high on the agenda.
The 18th United Nations climate change conference, known as COP18, has
opened in Doha, the Qatari capital.
Over the next two weeks, up to 17,000 people will attend the
conference. Delegates will be negotiating a new global deal on
climate, but there are ongoing tensions between rich and poor
countries.
The meeting elected the former Qatari energy
minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, as president of the Conference
of the Parties.
In his opening remarks he said the meeting was "critical" and a
"golden opportunity" to make progress on a new global climate deal.
"This is an historic conference," said Attiyah, "it is of vital
importance considering the items on its agenda.
It is a turning point in the negotiations on climate change."
Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South African foreign minister, officially
handed over the COP presidency to Attiyah, Qatar's deputy prime
minister at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha.
After brief speeches by both, Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC executive
secretary, pointed out the "unique" location of this year's COP.
"Each COP is unique - and this is no exception," she said.
"This is the first time the COP is being held in the Gulf region. On
this historic occasion, the region has an unequaled world stage to
showcase the contributions being made to reduce the Gulf's food and
water vulnerabilities, to put regional energy growth on a more
sustainable path and to build a safer, stronger and more resilient
energy future for all countries."
Carbon permits
A central issue at the summit is the problem of "hot air" carbon permits.
The term refers to attempts by some wealthy
countries to carry over unused carbon permits so they can be offset
against future cuts.
Developing nations say this is unfair and reduces the value of any
commitment to reduce carbon dioxide.
In one of the summit's first announcements,
Australia said it will aim to cut its emissions by 0.5 per cent from
1990 levels by 2020 in a second commitment period of the Kyoto
Protocol.
A Nauru delegate, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island
States - a group representing 44 mostly low-lying countries
particularly vulnerable to climate change - called for greater
ambition for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which
binds many developed countries to make emissions cuts.
"This conference is about nothing less than
preserving the fundamental integrity of the climate change regime,"
she said, "and that must begin with a strong second commitment period
under the Kyoto Protocol.
"If developed countries cannot live up to their current obligations,
how can we have any confidence in a future agreement?"
Nauru also called for stronger commitments from developed countries to
help developing countries finance ways to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions.
Currently, developed countries have pledged to provide $100bn a year
for adaptation and mitigation measures for developing countries by
2020.
As Qatar welcomes world leaders to the conference, its own
environmental record has come under criticism as a major contributor
to greenhouse gases.
Spotlight on polluters
The climate talks have placed a spotlight on Qatar, which produces
nearly 50 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide for each of its 1.6 million
residents.
Jamie Henn, co-founder of the environment group 350.org, pointed out
that Qatar had set some goals, including the plan to use 20 per cent
renewable energy by 2024. Still, he said, the host country could do
more.
"We are fully aware of the perils the world is facing as a result of
climate change," Attiyah, who is also a former Qatari petroleum
minister, said.
"We hope the conference will produce tangible
results and reinforce international cooperation."
Qatar "is also one of the 10 developing countries predicted to be most
affected by rising sea levels", Attiyah said.
"Environmental sustainability is a key pillar of our national vision," he said.
In terms of volume, China remains the top emitter with more than eight
billion tonnes of greenhouse gases every year - an increase of 171 per
cent since 2000.
China is followed by the US, which produces over five billion tonnes
annually, although its emissions have fallen since 2007.
In third place is India. Its economic boom has made it the third worst
polluter, pumping out nearly two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a
year.
And then there is Russia, producing around 1.6bn tonnes of emissions every year.

Massive deforestation risks turning Somalia into desert

Massive deforestation risks
turning Somalia into desert

Hassan Hussein
cuts down 40 trees
every month to fuel
his charcoal
business, fully aware of the
impact his action has on the
environment.
But for the livestock keeper, the
forests are the last remaining
resource. And he is not alone.
Hundreds of thousands of
Somalia's traditional pastoralist
herders do the same, putting
their impoverished country on a
path of heavy deforestation that
risks turning large swathes of
their country into a desert.
"I used to keep animals, but I lost my herd to famine and
disease and am the eldest in the
family," says Hussein, 27,
adding that he has 10 mouths to
feed back home -- two children,
seven brothers and his mother.
Four years ago, Hussein had 25
camels and 300 goats. Now, only
three camels and 15 goats from
his once respectable sized herd
are left.
Thus every morning, with an axe
slumped over his shoulder, he
sets off in search of wood for
charcoal.
Once he locates and cuts down a
tree, it takes two days of
burning, and two more days of
cooling the smouldering heaps
before he can sell the charcoal,
at six dollars (five euros) for a 20
kilogramme sack.
The village of Jaleo, in the
northern self-declared state of
Somaliland, once prided itself on
being at the heart of the
savannah.
British explorer Harald Swayne
recounted, in his 19th century
memoirs, the adventures he had
while tracking and hunting "a
large herd of elephants."
But the last elephant was killed
in 1958, and were Swayne to
retake his journey today, he
would only find the smallest of
game in a rocky landscape
dotted with shrubs and charred
tree stumps.
"Twenty percent of the forest
has disappeared in the last ten
years -- definitely this country is
turning into a desert," Ahmed
Derie Elmi, director of forests in
Somaliland's environment
ministry, recently tells AFP.
"If the deforestation continues at
this pace, this country will be a
desert in two or three decades,"
echoes Ahmed Ibrahim Awale of
the Candlelight organisation,
which tackles environmental
and health issues in Somaliland.
Charcoal burning has not always
been preferred in Jalelo.
Three years ago an outbreak of
Rift Valley Fever in the Horn of
Africa forced Gulf states to
suspend importation of animals
or animal products from the
region, forcing the herders to
look for alternative sources of
income.
But it is urbanisation and a
population explosion that are
the biggest threats to the
country's environmental well-
being.
Somaliland's capital Hargeisa
has a population of 850,000
people, six times its population
in the 1970s, which consumes
approximately 250 tonnes of
charcoal daily.
Elmi says that charcoal is the
main source of energy, as
electricity is rare and expensive
for many.
The rampant deforestation is not
unique to Somaliland. In
southern Somalia, Al Qaeda-
linked Shebab insurgents turned
charcoal burning and
exportation into one of their
major sources of income.
In a report, the UN monitoring
group on Somalia and Eritrea
says the Islamist group made up
to 25 million dollars every year
from charcoal trade.
Several regions of southern
Somalia were declared famine
zones by the United Nations last
year, with the deforestation
contributing to an extreme
drought.
In a bid to put an end to
rampant deforestation,
Somalia's newly elected
President Hassan Sheikh
Mohamud in one of his first
official duties banned all
exportation of charcoal, in line
with a UN embargo in February.
However, much more than a UN
declaration and a presidential
decree are needed to bring the
deforestation to an end.
"The underlying causes of
poverty and the general decline
of the size of livestock herds
have to be addressed," says
Awale.
Alternative sources of energy
must be harnessed to cater for
the population, massive
reforestation campaigns need to
be initiated and some of the
pastoralists need to switch to
agriculture.

"All the mature trees have
disappeared.... In the past one
could get six or seven 25
kilogramme sacks of charcoal
from a tree. Today, maybe one
or two," Awale says.
As a consequence, charcoal
prices in Somaliland have
doubled in the past four years,
to 10 dollars a sack.

"Each time I cut down a tree, I am left with a bitter taste in my
mouth," Hussein says. "The
future is bleak.... All the trees
will have disappeared."


Culled from france24.com

On 10/31/12, Abiodun Odedeyi <abiodunodedeyi@gmail.com> wrote:
> From the ditch of poverty, credit/loans services are spreading
> financial freedom throughout the realm of economically active poor,
> low-income persons and micro-enterprises especially in developing
> countries. To this end, governments and financial institutions
> continually look for ways of improving the sector; how to create
> conducive lending platforms for medium and low income
> business/individuals.
>
> At the end of World War two, almost all of developed Europe benefited
> from one loan scheme or the other. Some of the biggest benefactors
> till date are Poland, Switzerland, and Germany (who, apart from low
> interest loans also got many of it debts written off).
> In Nigeria, the same idea of economic empowerment played out in the
> creation of community-based lending institutions. During it first
> thirty years of existence, micro-lending sector in the West African
> state have seen different transformations, policies, over-hauling etc.
> Popular among them was the Community Banks which ran between 1990 to
> 2007, the People's Bank of Nigeria, between 1989 to 2002, Family
> Economic Advancement programme (FEAP) among others.
>
> In 2007, the biggest and widely spread of these community-based banks,
> Community Bank, was reorganized into Micro-finance Bank Banks (mfb)
> with the aim of re-branding, block loopholes and giving more strength
> to it.
>
> Virus dwindling micro banks
> Within two years of a robust restart, a major crack opened the newly
> reorganized micro-banks. Quick intervention by the apex bank however
> saved a waif-like; scores of the institutions that started strongly
> became a hard lesson for others that survived the scare.
> October 2012, one of the micro-finance institutions, by share of luck,
> discovered an impending bombshell!
>
> While going through her Black Book (an inventory of bad debtors and
> other customers the bank won't like to transact business with), it was
> discovered that some names on the 'Black Book' are re-accessing loans
> with the bank. These individuals have been chased, searched for months
> without success only for them to come back a year or two later.
>
> Cross Carpet Debtor
> September 17, 2012 was a cool bright day. A team of 11 officials of a
> mfb (name withheld) moved on some unsuspecting loan defaulters within
> it Lagos business district. After visiting three debtors, it was
> established they allowed a certain Iya Oyinbo use them in securing
> loan; they used their names to seek for loan then handed it over to
> the woman. When the heat from the bank became unbearable, one of the
> 'victims' moved in with police on Iya Oyinbo. Reports filtered in that
> she was under detection at Elere Police Station, Mushin, Lagos but on
> getting to the station, two other financial institution officials were
> waiting at the station deck, sweating, the person in custody wasn't
> Iya Oyinbo but her younger sister.
> Iya Oyinbo's debt tops several millions of naira and she is nowhere to be
> found.
>
> As at the time of this writing, a month after, Iya Oyinbo is yet to
> surface, several other cross carpet debtors have also been discovered.
> The cancer is spreading, many 'customers' are gaining on this pretence
> then fade away, move to another financial institution then disappear
> again; pandemic looms over a key sector saddled with providing
> financial service to about 65% of the country's population.
>
> Is there a way out?
> The absent of credit rating, which would have enlightened financial
> sectors on customers' credit profile, was however waived aside by a
> Lagos based financial expert (name withheld because he is not
> permitted to speak to media). He bemoaned the state of national data
> collection as a critical blow to any quest for credit rating agency.
>
> "Loan disbursing officers should get to know their customers more,
> this, not credit rating, will reduce the spate of cross carpet
> debtors."
>
> Chi-Tola Roberts, the managing director of InFocus PR lampooned the
> non-utilization of several national data collections which has taken
> place over the years.
>
> "With the national identity card, voting registration, Sim card
> registration, our journey to such national comprehensive database is
> like sixty percent completed; the pocket few can be worked on with
> time".
>
> Data from the Central Bank shows that 8.5 billion of the 28.8 billion
> (about 29.8%) earmarked for Small and Medium Enterprises Equity
> Investment Scheme (SMEEIS) fund so far have been utilized, and about
> ten percent of the fund meant for micro credit not yet touched. The
> pressure of meeting up with Vision202020 could have set in motion,
> rapid disbursement of these trapped funds yet dwindling confidence in
> market structure may affect the ball being kicked to motion.
>
> www.donabiodun.blogspot.com
>

Spain's bad loans hit 10.7 percent

Spain's bad loan ratio hits record 10.7%

Spanish banks' bad loans surged to a new record level in September
with more than one in ten classed as high risk, the central bank said
Monday.

The level of loans considered at high risk of not being repaid --
mostly real estate credits -- reached 10.7 percent of total loans, the
highest level since the records began in 1962, the bank said in a
report.

The total value of these loans was 182.2 billion euros ($233 billion)
in September, the bank said.

Spanish banks have been
weighed down with rising bad loans and repossessed real estate since
the collapse of a property bubble in 2008, which has caused defaults
by builders and mortgage holders to soar.

The level of Spanish banks' bad loans, a major concern for financial
markets as an indicator of the country's financial health, has risen
steadily over recent months.

In August the ratio had reached 10.52 percent, according to revised
figures in Monday's report.

A surge in unemployment in Spain, where one in four workers is now
jobless, has driven a wave of evictions of defaulting
mortgage-holders.

The conservative government last week announced a two-year halt to
evictions of the most desperate homeowners following an outcry over
suicides linked to evictions.

Eurozone authorities agreed in June to extend a rescue loan of up to
100 billion euros to aid ailing Spanish banks.
An audit by US consultancy Oliver Wyman concluded that Spanish banks
overall needed to raise up to 59.3 billion euros of extra capital, or
53.7 billion euros after adjusting for the effect of certain mergers
and fiscal procedures.

But the government has said it believes it will need to ask for a
lower amount, about 40 billion euros, from the bailout fund, since
some of the banks could raise capital themselves.

In August Spain approved the creation of a so-called "bad bank" to buy
troubled property assets and bad loans from lenders in a bid to clean
up the financial sector and restore investor confidence in the
economy.

Culled from france24.com