Marrakesh, home to mosques, palaces and gardens, will be going green for COP22, the international follow-up to last year’s historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
World leaders will be gathering there for the next 11 days to advance the landmark agreement, in which an unprecedented number of countries agreed to limit the increase in average global temperature to less than 2° Celsius.
But it remains to be seen if the world will successfully limit warming to prevent the point of no return.
As the host country for the COP22 talks, Morocco is determined to make this meeting the “African COP.”
Morocco, where 40 percent of the population still works the land, already feels the impacts of climate change on its agricultural production. Last year, Morocco went without rain for more than two months. Overall it received 42.7 percent less rain during its main planting season than in an average year.
Mohammed Ibrahimi, a farmer with one hectare of apple trees in Boumia, recalled that last December there were temperatures of 77 degrees. “Normally it is 33.8 degrees or 35.6 degrees at that time of year,” he said. As a result, he harvested just 20 tons “when I’d expected 40 tons.”
The impact of climate change is being felt around the world, but the irony is that although Africa is the least polluter it suffers one of the worst impacts.
Seven of the 10 countries most at risk from climate change are in Africa (Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Eritrea).
“COP21 was a failure because the things mentioned were things they could do, and not what they should or must do,” remarked Nnimmo Bassey, director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an environmental think tank and advocacy organization.
Meanwhile, some 245 participants, from 37 different countries (among which were 23 African countries) joined an “African and international conference” on the “issues and challenges of COP22” in Casablanca, Morocco, Sept. 23 to 24.
The final document read, “Record-breaking temperatures month after month, a succession of cyclones, hurricanes, floods, forest fires and debilitating droughts remind us that climate change is a reality which already affects hundreds of millions of us.
“Africa, host of the COP22, suffers most directly and dramatically the consequences of runaway climate change: resource and environmental degradation, food insecurity, water stresses, increasing poverty, health risks and massive population displacement. Africans are not responsible for climate change, so our commitment is in the name of justice: of climate, but also of social justice.”
AFRICAN STATES REBUFF UN APPOINTEE FOR GAY RIGHTS
(GIN)—The appointment of international law professor Vitit Muntarbhorn could be stalled or dead in the water after a majority of African countries voted to reject the U.N.’s pick for a monitor of LGBT rights on the continent.
The African countries drafted a resolution calling for the new U.N. investigator to be suspended from his job.
The 54-member Africa group said concentrating on gay rights would detract from other issues, including racism, DW reported.
Muntarbhorn of Thailand was appointed in September by the U.N. Human Rights Council. The resolution against his appointment was adopted by a 23-18 vote with 6 abstentions, reflecting the deep divisions internationally on gay rights, The Washington Post reported.
The U.N. has been trying to improve the rights of the LGBT community but has repeatedly been opposed by member countries, especially in the Middle East, Africa, China and Russia.
Botswana’s ambassador to the U.N., Charles Ntwaagae, said last week that African nations want the General Assembly to delay consideration of a Human Rights Council resolution adopted June 30 that authorized the appointment of an expert to monitor LGBT rights to discuss “the legality of the creation of this man,” according to a news report.
According to a U.N. human rights report last year, at least 76 countries retain laws used to criminalize and harass people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, including laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relationships among adults.
Muntarbhorn will be expected to visit countries and bring human rights violations to the attention of U.N. members. He will investigate human rights violations against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender and inter-sex people.
Muntarbhorn, who has been on the council’s Commission of Inquiry on Syria and previously served as U.N. special investigator on North Korea and on child prostitution and child pornography, was given a wide mandate by the Human Rights Council for three years.
EAST AFRICAN RUNNERS TAKE NYC MARATHON’S FIRST PRIZE
(GIN)—Eritrea’s Ghirmay Ghebreslassie and Kenya’s Mary Keitany won the New York City Marathon Sunday, with Keitany becoming the first woman to win three straight titles in more than three decades.
The 19-year-old Ghebreslassie—the youngest-ever male winner in the contest—finished his first race in New York with a time of 2:07:51, capping what amounted to a three-man race that included Kenya’s Lucas Rotich and Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa. Ghebreslassie began gradually pulling away at the 20-mile marker, beating Rotich by 62 seconds. American Abdi Abdirahman finished third, after Desisa dropped out at mile 22.
Keitany, 34, is the first woman to win three New York City marathons in a row since Grete Waitz won five from 1982 to 1986. She also took first place in the London marathon of 2011 and 2012.
Second place went to 2012 Olympic silver medalist Sally Kipyego, also of Kenya, in a time of 2:28:01, and American Molly Huddle was third in 2:28:13.
Keitany was not part of Kenya’s 2016 Olympic team in Rio earlier this year. She was dropped because of a collision in the London Marathon that saw her lose out on a top placing there.
This victory proves that she should have been considered for a spot on the team, although perhaps being able to focus on international marathons rather than Rio allowed her to better prepare for New York.