Energy and Climate change

PACE - Pan African Conservation Education was created by Tusk and Siren Conservation Education and is coordinated by UNAFAS Conservation Values Programme. This PACE Energy & Climate Change supplement was devised and compiled by Penny Fraser. Much appreciated advice and original material was provided by: Carbon Green Africa; ISTP In Service Training Programme of the Baptist and Presbyterian churches in Cameroon; PACE Champions Dzelagha Banboye Frederick and Agaba Denis; Education & Training Africa (ETA) and UNAFAS. Education, environment, conservation and climatology specialists in the PACE network have guided, reviewed and adjusted the content, with independent expert meteorological advice.

Published by TUSK Trust 4 Cheapside House, Gillingham, Dorset SP8 5DH. UK

© 2019 TUSK Trust

A catalogue record for this booklet is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-9163401-0-7

Moral rights of the authors have been asserted. All rights reserved. The authors have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and currency of the information in this publication. The authors disclaim any liability for loss, injury or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, from the use and application of the contents of this booklet.

PACE - Pan African Conservation Education

PACE is about sharing environmental success stories, sharing simple solutions to common problems between communities across Africa. The PACE pack was first produced in 2004. It is a set of multi-media educational materials about issues confronting people, including those living with wildlife, as they go about their daily lives. The principle behind PACE is to show that everything in our environment is linked, that if we look after our environment then we, the wildlife and other people we share the planet with, will all benefit. The PACE pack is arranged in ten modules: Living with Wildlife, Water, Soil, Forests, Energy, Living by the Ocean, Urban Living, Health, and Careers in Conservation. It includes beautifully illustrated introductions with background information and context, games, activities and puzzles that draw on traditional wisdom and science. Supplements go into more detail. Films illustrate grass roots success stories. Action sheets will help you put the solutions into practice. There are posters. An educator guide links PACE to frameworks and curricula that teachers follow in schools.

PACE Energy and Climate Change module

We all depend on energy. Despite the many potential energy sources in Africa fuel scarcity and high prices are increasing problems. The introduction to this module looks at how communities can better manage existing energy sources. It explains, very simply, some of the alternative renewable, sustainable sources. The films show African communities that are using some of these techniques. Thirteen action sheets explain how to do the same for yourself.

Energy and Climate Change are inextricably linked. Climate Change is already impacting on the everyday lives of people in rural and urban Africa. This supplement explains what climate change is and why it is happening. It discusses the effects and what we can do to manage and reduce the negative impacts. We have included examples from West, Central, East and Southern Africa, and case studies from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Cameroon and Ethiopia.

Contents

Introduction

What is Climate change

Climate zones

Vegetation zones

The Carbon Cycle

The Greenhouse Effect

What kind of Climate changes are happening?

How do we know climate is changing?

Ice melting and sea level changing

Where have all the greenhouse gases come from?

Fossil fuels

Burning wood

Forest & bush fires

Deforestation and forest degradation

We keep more cows

Cement factories

We make more waste

The effect of climate change on ecosystems

The effect of climate change on humans

The effect of climate change on wildlife

Can we do anything about climate change?

Climate change Mitigation

Conservation farming

Compost making

Improved cooking technology

Biogas

Tree planting and Care

Climate change adaptation

Nutritional gardening

Stay Healthy

Tree planting

Bee keeping

Training and education

Early Burning - Fire breaks

Case studies

Waste to energy

Transforming Manure into electricity

Zero waste to landfill

Small scale waste processing

Sustainability education

Paper mache

How many trees to cook a meal?

Drought stressed savanna in the Sahel

What Is Climate Change?

Climate change, also called Global Warming, is the long-term change in weather patterns caused by a gradual heating of the earth’s surface, oceans and atmosphere. The Climate change that we are experiencing now is a result of what we call the greenhouse effect. It is caused by an increase in certain gases in the atmosphere, they absorb the sun’s energy and trap it in the atmosphere just as heat is trapped in a greenhouse. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), water vapour (H2O), ozone (O3) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Some of these are produced naturally but human activities have caused a great increase.

This booklet explains what climate change is in more detail, where greenhouse gases come from, the impact of climate change on people, wildlife and habitats, how we can slow the rate of change and how we can adapt to changes already taking place. There are examples of what both ordinary and some very innovative people and organisations around Africa are already doing in response to climate change. We hope these examples will give you inspiration and ideas to use yourself in your own area and everyday lives.

A greenhouse, sometimes referred to as a glass-house, is a structure with walls made from glass or clear plastic. Sunlight and heat enters and gets trapped inside. Greenhouses are used in colder climates to create a warm place to grow plants that can’t tolerate the outside conditions.

Climate is the pattern of weather over a long period of time, or in one area. Weather is the state and variations of the atmosphere, in the short term, from minutes to months. By ‘state of the atmosphere’ we mean the humidity, temperature, pressure, wind, sunshine, visibility, cloud and precipitation. The kind of clouds and kind of precipitation (rain, hail, snow), intensity of rainfall, fog, mist, thunderstorms and lightening are all aspects of weather and climate.

All weather is caused by the movement or transfer of energy. The earth’s energy comes from the sun, carried as heat, light and radiation to the surface of the earth. The result of this energy flow and other factors listed below is the seasonal patterns of temperature and rainfall that we are all familiar with.

who study climate are Climatologists

People who study the weather are Meteorologists

People

African Climate Zones

The climate of an area is influenced by many factors including: latitude, altitude, prevailing winds, aspect, ocean currents, and distance from the ocean.

Can you think of any others?

What similarities do you see between the climate and vegetation zones on the two maps?

African climate zones

Mediterranean

Tropical

Semi-arid or Steppe

Desert

Savanna

Sahara Desert

African Vegetation Zones

The climate of an area influences which plants and animals will be found there.

What plant and animal species do you know from each of the different zones? Do you know any animal species that migrate when the seasons change?

African vegetation zones

Mediterranean Scrub

Tropical Rainforest

Tropical Broadleaved Woodland Savana

Desert and Desert Steppe

Tropical Woodland and Grassland Savana

Mountain Vegetation and Temperate Grassland

The Carbon Cycle

The oceans, the ground, lakes and concrete in towns and cities all absorb and store solar energy as heat. About 30% of the sun’s energy that comes towards the earth is reflected back away again by clouds, the ocean and lakes, plants, ice, the glass and zinc of buildings and other surfaces.

Plants also absorb incoming solar energy, using photosynthesis. Photosynthesis (Photo means light, Synthesis means put together) is the process by which plants produce their own food. The energy in sunlight is captured and used to fuse carbon (from carbon dioxide in the air) and hydrogen (from water absorbed through plant roots) to produce glucose. Plants use the glucose as food, to grow. They release Oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis.

Plants are autotrophs, or primary producers, the group of organisms that produce their own food. You can read more about the role of plants in food chains, food webs and ecosystems in the Wildlife booklet. In relation to Climate Change it is important to understand the place of plants and photosynthesis in the carbon cycle (illustrated below).

The greenhouse effect is when gases in the earth’s atmosphere stop solar energy from radiating back out into space. They absorb it and then radiate some back towards earth and some away from the earth – the overall result is more energy and so warmer temperatures in the ground, in oceans and at the earth’s surface.

The Green House Effect

If there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the earth would be very, very cold, too cold for life to survive on this planet. However, humans have released so many that there are now about 30% more than 200 years ago.

What Kind Of Climate Changes Are Happening?

• Temperatures are rising.

• Rainfall patterns are changing. There is reduced rainfall in some places and more in other places.

• Weather is becoming unpredictable. Seasons are changing from what we are used to and expect, for example rains come earlier or later, or fall in what we expect to be the dry season.

• More frequent, severe and prolonged extreme weather events, like heatwaves, hurricanes, cyclones, floods, or drought.

West Africa - 2010

How Do We Know Climate Is Changing?

We are all seeing and experiencing changes –you will have your own local examples. On a global scale, scientists have been recording the weather for many years. They also study tree rings, coral reefs, the layers in rock, in glacier ice and the layers of sediment in oceans and lakes – all of these contain evidence that in the last century the earth’s temperature and atmospheric carbon has been increasing super-fast.

The Earth’s climate has changed throughout history, with cycles of warm and hot periods that each last +/-100,000 years. The changes result from small variation in the position of earth in relation to the sun (the earth’s orbit), which alters the amount of solar energy reaching earth. In the last eight hundred thousand (800,000) years there have been seven ice ages when temperatures dropped, polar ice spread and glaciers formed lower down the slopes of mountains like Kilimanjaro.

In the last big ice age, between fifteen and twenty thousand years ago, it was so cold that most of northern Europe and the British Isles were covered with ice several kilometres thick.

The high mountains in Lesotho would have been frozen during this ice age and in the Kalahari desert, northern Botswana, eastern Angola and western Zambia rainfall may have been 20% of

what they get now. Temperatures rose, and the ice melted. The climate we are used to started about 10,000 years ago.

These changes are a natural cycle, but the climate change we are experiencing now is happening more quickly than in the past, up to 10 times faster.

• Temperature at the earth’s surface increased nearly 1°C since 1880, most of that since 1980.

• The five warmest years since scientists kept records occurred since 2010.

• In 2013 Ghana experienced the highest temperatures its ever recorded and South Africa the hottest March anywhere in Africa - 47.3°C.

• Drought gripped the Horn of Africa in 2011, The Sahel in 2012, Namibia and Angola in 2013.

• Heavy rain hit South Africa in 2000, Uganda and the Sahel in 2007, West Africa in 2010. In 2011 the heaviest rain in 30 years fell across Zimbabwe.

Uganda - 2000

How Do We Know Climate Is Changing?

Glacier ice melting and sea level changing is a result of climate change

During an ice age all the water that is locked up in ice means there is less in the oceans and less circulating in rivers, as rainfall and other parts of the water cycle. The water or hydrological cycle is the way that water moves around the planet.

In the last big ice age between fifteen and twenty thousand years ago the sea level was about 130 meters lower than now – where Durban harbour in South Africa is located would have been 45 km from the sea and the location of Port Elizabeth 45 km from the coast! Of course, these cities were not there at the time! Gradually temperatures increased, ice melted, and sea levels rose again.

• The climate change happening now is also effecting the global water cycle in a big way.

• Polar ice sheets are melting, they lost 400 billion tons of ice between 1993 and 2016. The rate of loss tripled in the last decade.

• Glaciers on mountains are reducing. Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is the highest mountain in Africa. It is famous for its white cap of ice on the summit, but the ice is shrinking.

• Sea levels rose 10 – 20 cm in the last century and since 1995 they have risen at twice the speed of the previous 80 years.

• If all glaciers melted the sea level would rise by about 90m!

Where Have All The Greenhouse Gases Come From?

Burning fossil fuels emits enormous quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Fossil fuels

Coal, gas and oil, are the remains of forests and swamps that covered the earth millions of years ago. In what is called the carboniferous period – 300 million years ago – much of the earth was covered with dense forest. As the trees died they were buried under layers of soil and gradually transformed by high pressure and temperature into the coal now being mined and burned all over the world. The process that changed the dead plant matter into what we call ‘fuel’ is fossilisation. Oil and natural gas are made in a similar way from the bodies of marine organisms which lived in the sea at that time and fell to the sea floor when they died.

Oil is used to manufacture petroleum products –petrol, kerosene, diesel. When any of these fossil fuels are burned the carbon taken out of the atmosphere when the plants photosynthesized millions of years ago, is released back into the atmosphere. Fossil fuels are used to power millions of vehicles every day all over the world, they are used in power stations to produce electricity, to power factories making steel, pharmaceuticals, cement (see page 13) and much more. Burning fossil fuels was the source of 40% of global carbon emissions in the last 40 years. The figure is less in Africa, where a lot of electricity is made using hydro power stations, and where vehicle use and heavy industry is less than countries like China, USA and Germany.

Driving a small diesel car 100km can release 0.01 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Producing 1 kg of nitrate fertiliser emits 0.8–1.5 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Where Have All The Greenhouse Gases Come From?

Burning wood

When wood or charcoal is burned carbon is also released. Trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and release oxygen. They store a lot of the carbon. When wood is burned that carbon is released into the atmosphere in the smoke. Smoke from burning wood and charcoal is a big source of greenhouse gases.

Forest and Bush Fires

Wild uncontrolled fires and semi-controlled burning of the bush every dry season seems to have become the norm in much of rural Africa. Grasses, shrubs and other plants that are burnt when we ‘clear the bush’ or clear overgrown farms contain carbon just as trees do and the carbon is released into the atmosphere when the plants are burned. In some areas it contributes over 30% of the global greenhouse emissions during late dry seasons.

Deforestation and Forest Degradation

Trees and other vegetation actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As primary producers (see page 6) they absorb the sun’s energy and CO2. Much of the carbon is stored in the plant biomass and accumulates as vegetation grows. This is why trees are a carbon store or sink. Trees capture carbon and store it –effectively reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Across Africa erosion and land degradation like that pictured on the following page is increasingly common.

Some of the causes are:

• Widespread clearing and burning to create fresh agricultural land (below)

• Overgrazing (next page). Can you think of other activities that cause degradation and loss of vegetation?

Where Have All The Greenhouse Gases Come From?

A medium sized tropical tree can absorb 1 ton of carbon over a 40 year period.

Trees with large trunks and with dense wood store the most carbon.

Degrade means to reduce the quality, make less good. Forest degradation means to reduce the quality of value of forest.

Where Have All The Greenhouse Gases Come From?

We keep more cows!

In 2018 there were 97 million cows in China, and 14 million in South Africa!!!

Cows, like other animals in the group called ruminants, ferment their food before they digest it. The result of this kind of digestive process is dung and methane! Cows produced 23% of the world’s methane emissions in 2018!

When cattle graze in fields or the open bush it need not be a problem, we all know that cow dung makes good compost, improving the soil and helping crops to grow on our farms. But when cattle farming is very intensive, there is so much dung and so much methane produced that it becomes a problem. Because the ground lacks vegetation cover erosion is high and rain does not soak into the ground but runs across the surface causing flooding and water management problems. This is the case when cattle are kept in large feedlots – common in the USA and China and becoming common in Botswana and South Africa. The cows are enclosed in fenced corals, like those below, or individual cages in barns, and fed on prepared feed. The largest feedlots in China are just 200 ha with up to 20,000 cows.

Let’s not go the way of China which produced 7.3 million tons of intensively reared beef in 2018, or the USA’s 12.4 million tons1! Holistic planned grazing is an alternative for the grasslands of Africa, it involves large herds of grazing animals that keep moving from area to area, mimicking herds of wildlife. Grazing is planned and integrated with wildlife management and crop production. Use of holistic planned grazing in the Horn of Africa increased production 400% and halted desertification.

Methane is a more potent and dangerous climate change gas than CO2.

Over just 5 years it traps 100 times more heat than CO2

Cattle pens at Bronkhorstspruit, South Africa.

Where Have All The Greenhouse Gases Come From?

We use more and more cement

Cement factories produce a lot of CO2

• Cement factories create 5 – 6% of man-made carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

• Cement consumption in Sub-Saharan African grew >7 % between 2010 – 2017.

• In 2018 119.7 million tonnes of cement were used in Sub-Saharan Africa. 1

Limestone rock is the main raw material for cement. Limestone contains a lot of carbon. Cement manufacture involves a process called decarbonisation or calination of limestone. To make cement a mixture of limestone (+/-80%), sand and clay (+/-20% – to provide silica, aluminium and iron) and small quantities of other minerals like bauxite and shale are crushed and ground then heated in special kilns at very high temperatures. Cement kilns have to be up to 1400 – 1500°C. The heat causes a chemical reaction in which the limestone releases its carbon and changes into calcium oxide – the process is called decarbonisation or calination. It is because of this process that cement has the binding qualities valued in construction. Cement factory kilns are heated using fossil fuels. Fossil fuels also release CO2

We all need cement, especially in Africa where building houses, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and other infrastructure are huge priorities.

Cement producing companies, researchers and entrepreneurs across the world are working hard to find ways to produce cement, or an equivalent, that doesn’t contribute to climate change. 2

They are looking at ways to use energy more efficiently when quarrying and transporting raw materials and also in the cement factory. They are looking for non-fossil fuels that will heat the kilns effectively. They are looking at alternative processes, that don’t produce CO2 as a byproduct, and they are looking at ways to capture or filter out the carbon produced in the factory so that it doesn’t get into the atmosphere.

They expect to reduce their emissions by 24% before 2050 even though cement consumption increases every year: it is an enormous challenge and a reason why we need more scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs.

Did you know?

China is the world’s biggest cement producer –

• China made 2410 million tonnes of cement in 2016. 3

• Making 1 tonne of cement can release up to 1 tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere.

1 World Bank

2 Cement sustainability initiate of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

3 European cement association data

Where Have All The Greenhouse Gases Come From?

We make more waste…

When organic matter decomposes it releases CO2 and methane into the atmosphere – both of which are greenhouse gases.

As our standards of living increase people seem to make more and more waste. In rural areas it is rarely a problem, because people have more space and tend to make good use of what they have. It is normal practice to use a compost heap or compost pit to let household and garden waste decompose until it can be used to fertilise our farms and gardens. A good compost heap contains worms and bacteria that break down the organic matter. In a good compost heap decomposition is aerobic because there is plenty of oxygen present. Carbon dioxide is given off, but not in harmful quantities.

In large towns and cities there is often more refuse and it accumulates. Organic waste produced in urban areas includes the same household kitchen waste that we all produce, plus waste from offices, shops, restaurants, oil and lubricants from garages and vehicle maintenance, waste from factories, abattoirs, and food processing plants. It all adds up, often in large refuse pits or by the roadsides. When the piles are large, or if they are waterlogged then anaerobic conditions are created. When organic matter decomposes without air (anaerobic decomposition) methane is produced. Methane is a much more damaging greenhouse gas than CO2

Read how Addis Ababa turns its city waste into electricity on page 31.

Action sheet 74, Papier Mache, explains a simple waste management technique.

Action sheet 72, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Films: Urban Living module. Recycling rubbish about making fuel briquettes from recycled waste in Kenya. Recycling plastic in South Africa. Recycling paper, in schools.

The Effect Of Climate Change

The effect of climate change – on ecosystems, humans and wildlife.

Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents when it comes to climate variability and change because of the many existing stresses like poverty, poor infrastructure and ecosystem degradation as well as the continents low adaptive capacity. 1

Effect on ecosystems

Warmer temperatures increase evaporation from lakes, rivers and the soil, causing some areas to become more arid. In those areas, forest fires are more likely (adding even more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere)

Less rain and more heat causes desertification as grassland and savanna areas deteriorate. Desertification is already a problem in the Sahel. Lake Chad is drying up and desertification creeping southward across the Sahel Region where arid conditions occur in areas that were grassland or woodland in living memory.

Rainfall patterns have changed. Rainfall is expected to increase over tropical Africa. Dry seasons will become drier and rainy seasons wetter in the seasonal tropics.

Temperature and rainfall changes may alter the distribution, the range of plants and animals and also of whole ecosystems. Where there is rain forest now it may become seasonally dry forest or even savanna in the future.

In drier areas, higher temperatures might allow dry forest types to spread higher up mountains, replacing evergreen forests. However, where climate change causes rainfall to increase, evergreen forest could spread to places where it did not exist before.

The effects of global warming will affect forest and woodland regeneration. Changes in the climate, especially in the seasons, will cause changes in the flowering and fruiting times of plants, as well as the life cycles of their pollinators and seed dispersers. This can result in flowers opening when their insect pollinators are not flying, meaning that fruits and seeds may not develop as expected. The germination of tree seeds and seedling development are both sensitive to temperature and moisture levels and may also be vulnerable to weeds, pests and diseases that spread because they are favoured by changed conditions.

More wildfires, especially in drier areas will change the composition of forest and woodland.

As well as greater risk of drought there is increased risk of flooding in new areas. Higher temperatures are melting icecaps at the north and south poles, increasing the amount of water in the oceans. Sea level rises impact on coastal areas and ecosystems, disturbing coastal mangrove forest, which is a vital habitat for breeding fish and for marine organisms like crayfish and prawns. Other marine ecosystems like the coral reefs off the East African coast are also vulnerable to deterioration. Changes in the temperature of the sea water affects the distribution of fish. Some fish need cooler waters, some need warmer waters. This means that areas suitable for fishing will change.

1 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 2007. Climate Change: Impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation in developing countries.

The Effect Of Climate Change

Effect on humans

Agricultural production is likely to be severely compromised by climate change. It will affect crop yields and the crops that can be grown in an area will change – a region that has always grown and relied on particular crops is likely to find that these don’t do so well in the changed conditions, while some crops and other plants will respond favourably, growing better.

Some agricultural land will be lost, including to desertification and along coasts, and growing seasons in some areas will be shorter, with lower yields – the cereal crops like sorghum and maize that subsistence farmers grow now are likely to suffer decrease in yields in certain areas. In other areas they may do better than they would now.

Agriculture that relies on rainfall rather than irrigation will be most affected. The UN has predicted that yields from rain-fed crops could be halved in some countries and net revenues from crops could fall by 90% by 2100. This will affect everyone, reduced agricultural production will reduce access to food for subsistence farmers and those who purchase their food. As well as food security it will reduce the income of commercial farmers, and the revenue of countries that export. When production reduces prices rise.

These factors will exacerbate any malnutrition caused by loss of land and uncertainty about what and when to plant, increasing the number of people at risk from hunger.

Fish stocks – already reduced in many places will be depleted further by rising water temperatures, siltation of rivers and dams from stream bank cultivation and pollution.

Changes in climate will affect water supplies. This decade, between 75 and 250 million people in Africa could be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. Lake Chad is drying up with desert extending into areas that were grassland in the past. Forest areas could become woodland.

Sea levels are already changing because the ocean waters are warmer and because the amount of water in the oceans is greater due to ice that covered the north and south poles gradually melting into the oceans. As sea levels rise, coastal areas suffer erosion and inundation, as well as more frequent and harsher storms. Together these effects force people to move inland. But what about the land, buildings, farms and industry? West Africa is most vulnerable. One-third of West Africa’s population live by the coast on the Gulf of Guinea – coastal zones that contribute about half of the regional GDP (Gross Domestic Product). In Nigeria about 20 million people, nearly 23% of the population, live along the coast. In Senegal, about 4.5 million people, 67% of the population live in the Dakar coastal area, which also has 90% of the country’s industries. In Ghana, Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, most of the main economic activities are located in the coastal zone. These areas are also the regions food basket. The sea, estuaries and lagoons all support artisanal and industrial fisheries that account for >75% of fishery landings in the region. The threat of inundation is very real along these coasts and coastal deltas 1, the coast is low-lying, lagoonal and heavy storms are frequent.

Grand-Lahou is about 100 kilometers west of Abijan in Ivory Coast. In 2016 it was reported that the oceans waves were swallowing the coastline of Grand-Lahou’s old town, by 1-to-2 meters a year. Eugène Koffi has spent his entire life on a shrinking patch of land called LahouKpanda, which is situated between the sea and a lagoon. “The sea used to be back there, two kilometers away,” said Koffi, pointing his finger at the horizon. Today, it comes up to just a few meters away from where he is standing. “There used to be people living here,” he adds. “There used to be coconut trees.” 2

The Effect Of Climate Change

In East Africa the ocean weather is calmer and the biggest cities are inland, but ports like Dar es Salaam, Mombasa and Maputo, as well as Cape Town in the south are also vulnerable to sea level rise, coastal erosion and extreme events.

Climate change will affect human as well as plant and animal health – malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoea are all climate sensitive.

The ecological pressures including changes in temperatures and changes in humidity will cause vectors and animals that host parasites to migrate to new areas, meaning that different populations of people and animals are likely to be exposed to infection. Organisms which vector human disease, such as rats and fleas which carry the plague, or mosquitoes which vector malaria.

Vector borne diseases also cause damage to agriculture through feeding on crops or being parasites on livestock, such as codling moth on apples, or boll weevil on cotton.

Changed temperatures and humidity will also influence the occurrence of bacterial, viral and other diseases, meaning that diseases will occur in areas where they were previously unrecorded. They may also disappear from certain areas.

Climate and health are directly linked in a many other ways. The extreme precipitation (rainfall) events and rising sea-levels caused by climate change mean that African cities will experience more severe and more frequent flooding. More flooding can result in increased water-borne disease. Flooded areas, especially where there is poor sanitation, act as reservoirs that carry and perpetuate diseases like cholera, malaria, dengue and yellow fever. If temperatures rise the range of meningitis, dengue fever and cholera will also increase. Physiological effects of higher temperatures and increased dust are already reported in sub-Saharan areas – including respiratory and eye problems.

Droughts are associated with a lack of access to water supplies for consumption and sanitation, as well as with poor agricultural productivity. Water scarcity will increase for both urban and rural populations in Africa over the next century. Climate change is expected to bring more frequent and longer droughts to the region, it is essential. Lack of good quality water increases the risk of diarrhoea meaning that high standards of hygiene and sanitation will become very important.

We can prepare for all of these changes, using Climate Change Mitigation and Climate Change adaptation, explained below.

The effect of climate change on wildlife

A species ‘range’ is the area where conditions are suitable for it to live.’ Range-restricted species have a smaller range than they need. Wildlife species become range-restricted when their habitat disappears or becomes inaccessible to them.

Loss of habitat is a huge threat to wildlife worldwide, it is the biggest threat to 85% of endangered species. Habitat loss results from degradation, for example when a lot of trees are cut or burned in forest or woodland habitats it degrades. Grasslands are degraded by overgrazing, frequent fire, trampling by large

herds of livestock or wildlife. Habitat is also lost when land is cleared for agriculture, for building towns, cities, factories, roads, airports, dams and so on. Natural habitats can be lost as a result of pollution from human activity and from natural events like lava flows and ash fall from volcanic eruptions, as a result of floods, landslides and hurricanes. In addition to all these factors climate change is causing habitats and ecosystems to change. As temperatures rise, rainfall patterns and water levels change so the vegetation changes – forest becomes woodland, woodland becomes savanna, grasslands become desert, floodplains become permanently waterlogged.

The Effect Of Climate Change

In the West African Sahel elephants are moving south because severe droughts and the drying up of Lake Chad mean there is no water in the areas where they used to find a home. People are also moving away from areas that have become desert, they move along with their herds of livestock. This creates more competition for land. The elephants and other wildlife suffer when human populations desperate for farmland do not tolerate the wildlife.

Southern Africa is also becoming drier and hotter under climate change. As a result, grazing and browsing wildlife has to move larger distances, and at different times than is normal in order to find the food and water it needs. Predators have to follow the herbivores on which they depend. As they search for food, water and conditions that meet their needs more animals are moving outside of National Parks, conservancies and other protected areas – the result is human: wildlife conflict. In Botswana is an example, increasing numbers of elephants are moving southwards. Wildlife needs access to more habitat in different places, at a time when it is becoming scarcer.

This is a global problem. In the far north of Canada the ice covered habitat of polar bears is shrinking. Higher temperatures are melting the ice. A few years ago the ocean pictured on this page was covered with solid ice. Now that the ice is melting the bears cannot cross. They are forced to look for new places to live. This brings them closer to human settlements. The result is increased conflict between polar bears and people.

Birds are also affected, in similar ways. In recent years some species of birds are being seen in areas where they have never previously occurred. Vultures are an example, their range is already changing in response to climate changes. Egrets that used to only be found in Africa and southern Europe now occur much further north in the United Kingdom.

Warmer temperatures and changes in the pattern of seasons are affecting the biological clock of some migratory species. Species that make annual migrations (like the wildebeest in East Africa) are starting their seasonal migrations earlier. The warmer weather tells them it is time to move. Whales in the oceans are effected in this way.

Can we do anything about climate change?

Yes we can, we can each change the way we live, to reduce our individual ‘ecological footprint’ – and together, in our families, through our traditional leaders and local councils, in our traditional and business groups we can reduce the footprint of our villages, neighbourhoods, towns, cities and businesses. By doing this we will influence and help our governments, the African Union and the UN as they work at their level.

If we take actions now to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there’s a good chance that we can limit average global temperature rises to 2°C. This doesn’t mean that there will be no more changes in the climate –warming is already happening – but we could limit, adapt to and manage these changes.

If we act now:

• We will suffer far fewer impacts of climate change.

• We will reduce the rate of change, meaning less impact and cost for future generations.

• We will enjoy wider benefits to health, energy security and biodiversity.

Two key concepts are Climate Change Mitigation and Climate Change Adaptation.

Climate Change Mitigation refers to things we can do to make climate change less severe: to stop or reduce the rate of climate change and maybe even reverse some. To Mitigate means to make something less harmful or less severe.

We can stop doing the things causing the problem.

1. Avoid or reduce deforestation.

2. Avoid degrading forest and woodlands.

3. Use fuel efficiently – use improved technology, energy efficient building design.

4. Use ‘clean’ energy – install solar, biogas, hydro or wind systems to generate electricity.

5. Try an electric car instead of diesel or petrol, if electrics not available use biofuel. Electric cars are replacing diesel and petrol vehicles in some countries.

6. Prevent bushfires and reduce smoke and pollutants released by our businesses, workshops and factories.

7. Make a compost heap and make choices that create less waste.

8. Practice conservation farming – biomass and the carbon it contains will stay in the ground reducing carbon emissions (and increasing soil fertility).

9. Protect biodiversity – healthy habitats rely on animals and insects.

10. Plant trees – trees absorb and store carbon.

The next section contains Mitigation and Adaptation examples from the Kariba REDD+ Project in Zimbabwe.

Climate Change mitigation – things we can do to reduce climate change

Conservation Farming

Conservation Farming (also known as Climate Smart Agriculture) is already adopted by some of the best farmers in the Kariba REDD+ project area. It is a no-till approach. This means that no plough is used to till the soil. The top 20cm of soil is aerobic, which means it is oxygenated and is very important for healthy microorganisms to live in. When soil is ploughed the healthy oxygenated topsoil is inverted with the deoxygenated subsoil below that has fewer healthy micro-organisms. Result is that seed gets planted in the less fertile sub-soil. Conventional ploughing and hand-tilling also breaks soil into smaller particle sizes. This further deoxygenates the soils and reduces water infiltration compared with no-till. No-till maintains soil particle size thus allowing more water to infiltrate deeper. Soils contain carbon dioxide and extensive ploughing or hand-tilling releases all this carbon dioxide into the atmosphere increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

In ‘Conservation Farming’ permanent planting stations or basins are used whereby the farmers plant their crops in the exact same place each season. The farmer places nutrients from compost or manure directly to these planting stations every year, directly feeding the plants that are planted there. Together with mulch, the overall soil fertility is improved year by year meaning that yields are equally increased. Healthy soil produces healthy crops and healthy nutrition for the body while unhealthy soil produces unhealthy crops and poor nutrition for the body.

Marking the permanent planting basins

A promising Conservation Farm maize yield with mulch visible, in the Kariba REDD+ Project area

Action sheet 30. Conservation agriculture.

Action sheet 39. Green Manure/Cover crops for biomass transfer.

Films: Conservation tilling, Permaculture.

Climate change mitigation – things we can do

Instead of burning the bush in conservation agriculture the grass is cut and used for mulch. It can be stored in the fields, as in the picture below in Zimbabwe. Mulch is very important, it helps to increase water infiltration into the soil. When the ground cover is cleared of all vegetation, 90% of the rainwater runs away over the surface, carrying away much of the topsoil. With mulch, 90% of rainwater is absorbed into the soil, which feeds the crops and prevents runoff and erosion. Mulch helps

replenish underground water sources. Mulch also acts as an insulator for the surface of the ground, protecting it from the harsh direct sun. It keeps the soil cool and protects the moisture from evaporation increasing a crop’s chances of survival for up to 5 weeks with no rain. In addition mulch adds support to compost, it decomposes, adding nutrients to the soil and encouraging healthy organisms which further improve soil fertility. Mulch helps create a wellrounded healthy soil cycle.

Compost making

Compost is a very effective proven way to make natural organic fertilizer from locally available materials. When compost is applied correctly in conjunction with the conservation farming principles outlined above, yield is greatly increased year after year. It does not cost any money. It only costs time and discipline. The best compost to make is thermal compost. The photographs on the next page illustrate the stages (1-4) of making compost, as practiced

successfully in the Kariba REDD+ project area, and harvesting the compost (picture 5)

By using these methods the land stays fertile meaning that people don’t have to expand or clear new farms every few years. The techniques used give high yields and more income.

Conservation farming is more drought resistant than traditional methods and doesn’t require chemical fertilisers so input costs are reduced and profit is increased.

Climate change mitigation – things we can do

Action

Films: Compost & Mulch

sheet 31. Practical composting

Climate change mitigation – things we can do

Improved cooking technology

There are some simple yet very effective ways to improve how we cook our food, ways that are environmentally friendly and reduce the amount of firewood normally used.

Some examples are biogas and cook stoves. These methods are all far more energy efficient than cooking on an open fire and use much less or no wood.

Biogas

Schools, hospitals and other residential facilities are installing biogas as a climate friendly means of simultaneously providing low-cost fuel and managing waste healthily and efficiently. Simple biogas technology provides households without access to the national grid with greener energy solutions that provide excellent lighting in homes and enable school children to read at night. Biogas provides smoke free and clean energy cooking that is also environmentally friendly. It eliminates indoor pollution resulting from the use of firewood or kerosene, which is a major threat to health especially of women and girls. Biogas is a clean smokeless burning energy thus helping families lead longer healthier lives. The biogas digester also produces bio-slurry, a proven, effective organic fertilizer that increases

crop yields, improves food security and household incomes. Biogas also provides social benefits such as extra time for social activities; less time spent collecting firewood e specially for women and children. Biogas can therefore substitute traditional fuels and is suitable for rural household cooking and lighting.

Action sheet 66. Biogas

Films: Biogas, Fuel efficient stoves, Smokehoods.

Action sheet 62. Improved Stoves

Action sheet 57. Reducing Kitchen

Smoke

Action sheet 58. Fuel Savers

Action sheet 60. Solar Cooking

Action sheet 61. Make your own Solar Cooker

Action sheet 59. Making a Fireless Haybox Cooker

Kariba REDD+ Project – Biogas Digester Construction

Climate change mitigation – things we can do

Tree Planting

People have set up fuel-wood plantations so that natural woodland is not depleted from harvesting for firewood. As forests contain substantial stores of carbon, planting trees to restore forest or woodland can actually absorb atmospheric carbon.

Planting trees is a way to generate income, and establishing nurseries at school, community or household level can do this. Multi-purpose trees can be propagated and seedlings sold to the community to generate income and sustainably supply domestic needs. Income generated from seedlings sold at this well organised tree nursery helps to purchase stationary for the students.

Tree Care

It is important to protect young trees from fire, from browsing or trampling by animals and also from people clearing, it’s very easy to accidentally cut an unmarked sapling that is hidden by grass. There are many ways to do this using readily available local materials, the children pictured below have used sticks and palm fronds.

Climate Change Adaptation

This refers to ways we can adjust what we do to live better in changed conditions. To Adapt means to modify, adjust or change something or how something is done.

We need to make ourselves less vulnerable to the harmful effects of climate change and also to take advantage of opportunities of climate change.

1. Install and maintain good wells, bore holes and water storage systems.

2. Increase the diversity of crops that we grow.

3. Try new crops, suited to a variable or our new climate. Learn from other peoples successes.

4. Assess the best time to plant – take advantage of different growing seasons.

5. Be health aware, prevention is better than cure.

6. Establish alternative sources of income –diversify to reduce risk.

7. Plant trees – for shade, fruit, fuel, income and much more.

8. Learn and be open to new knowledge, options and opportunities.

9. Try new technologies and new techniques.

10. Teach your children to be creative, resilient and adaptable.

11. Education throughout life – school years are only the start of education, learning is life-long.

Reliable boreholes, wells and water storage can ensure we have water throughout dry periods. Access to clean safe water is a basic fundamental human necessity. Whilst surface water such as rivers, lakes and dams are becoming increasingly more polluted through our waste plastic, chemicals and debris and from siltation as a result of soil erosion, we need to make sure we do everything we can to safe guard our underground water sources. If we continue with rampant deforestation and wild uncontrolled fires that leave the ground bare and unprotected, most of the rainwater will run off and we will end up depleting our underground water sources as well as our surface water sources.

Reliable access to safe water is important in reducing human wildlife conflict because it removes the need to migrate to natural water sources that are far from the safety of our villages. Reliable boreholes and wells also provide social benefits; when less time is spent walking many kilometres to fetch water, especially for women and children, they have more time for other activities.

Action sheet 64. Solar water heating Action sheet 65. Build your own solar water heater

Solar borehole installation

Youths enjoying water pumped with solar power in the Kariba REDD+ Project.

Climate Change Adaptation

Tree planting

There are many benefits from planting trees. Trees provide fuel, construction materials, fruits and other items for home use as well as having income generating potential. Planting trees as part of the sustainable management of existing forest and woodland will improve and maintain soil quality, provide shade, windbreaks, erosion control, fodder and livestock boundaries.

Presently we are cutting down trees faster than they can regrow. We can cut down a tree in a few minutes, but it takes many decades or even centuries for some new trees to grow to maturity. If we do not recognise the value trees have to humans and wildlife and put back what we take then eventually we will run out of trees. Rampant deforestation almost invariably leads to land degradation, including desertification in certain climatic zones.

Tree plantations are a very good way to mitigate climate change. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give us oxygen. Trees are the lungs of the world. With good management, sale of timber from plantations can provide a sustainable income as well as meet domestic needs. Trees also increase biodiversity. Trees and their roots protect the earth from all the natural elements and hold the soil together.

Trees can also be used in agroforestry, an agricultural practice whereby certain tree species which restore nitrogen in the soil are planted amongst crops.

Nutritional Gardening – Increasing the diversity of crops we grow

It is important we take full advantage of every opportunity to improve our food security. Some tropical areas can grow multiple crops all year, however in drier more arid regions it is necessary to grow crops according to the seasons. One way to do this is with community vegetable gardens, which have great potential for increasing food security. A variety of different vegetables can be grown to increase nutritional value of daily diets. Successful gardens can sell surplus produce to the general community, local market or businesses nearby. Income generated from these sales can be used to pay for education or used for other family needs.

Stay healthy

Good health means we will be more able to resist and survive health challenges. Balanced nutrition and clean water are central to good health.

Climate Change Adaptation

Bee keeping

Honey is a very important source of natural sugar in rural areas. Rural community members seldom have enough money to buy sugar and it is considered a luxury. Traditional ways of beekeeping are contributing to deforestation and land degradation with the resultant significant contribution to climate change. Deforestation mainly occurs as a result of large trees that are targeted in a few different ways. The bark is striped away and used to make traditional bark beehives. Many large trees are also hollow inside so are cut down and also used as traditional log beehives. Often when community members find natural beehives in old mature trees, they chop down the entire tree to get the honey. In the process they light small fires to smoke the bees. This often causes a wildfire outbreak, further damaging vast amounts of vegetation and trees. The destruction of habitat and biodiversity increases carbon emissions.

Improved beekeeping practices help protect the forests and wider environment. It is an alternative source of income whereby honey harvested can be sold as a cash crop. Beehives can be used to protect large areas of standing forests as beekeepers realize they need the trees as a food source for the bees and with each bee able to fly up to 2 kilometres it is easy to see how numerous hives spread out in a particular woodland can encourage community members to look after the resource for their benefit. Beekeepers will make sure there are no fires their area, as fire destroys the flora needed to produce honey. Bees pollinate crops, vegetable gardens and fruit trees maintaining yield and productivity.

Beehives can be used as a ‘bee fence’ to protect crops against elephants. Elephants don’t like bees. When they encounter bees, even near edible crops they will leave the area and go somewhere else. This reduces human: wildlife conflict and both humans and wildlife benefit.

There are many different types of beehives. Kenyan Top Bar Hives are very good for most beekeepers – the management is simple and one can harvest up to 20kgs honey from one hive.

Community benefits of bee keeping

• Empowerment of rural communities with knowledge to better solve their own problems.

• Reduced deforestation from felling large trees for hive construction or wild honey harvest.

• Reduced habitat loss from fewer fires used to smoke bees from wild hives.

• Increased financial wealth from sale of honey, reducing ‘dependency syndrome’.

• Improved health and general well being from medicinal properties of consuming honey and reinvestment of income from honey back into the family.

• Reduced human wildlife conflict as honey collectors no longer venture far into the bush to collect wild honey Beehives are also successfully used to keep crop raiding animals such as elephants out of fields.

• Increased biodiversity from reduced habitat loss.

KTB hives installed by beekeepers, in the Kariba REDD+ Project Area.

Climate Change Adaptation

Training and education for all ages in schools, in the community and workplace

We are living in increasingly unpredictable circumstances. We need to be able to adapt and adjust to climatic and environmental changes. The only way to do this is by capacity building through empowering our children and ourselves. Attending trainings to build our skills, knowledge and competencies is an invaluable way forward.

By receiving knowledge we empower ourselves to better problem solve and help ourselves to implement plans that will give us the best chances of benefitting from our changing environment. Giving our children the best opportunities possible to education helps strengthen future generations and reduces the risk of the same mistakes being made again – our children learn from parents and others around them as much as in school, so we need to set a good example and provide opportunities.

We are never too old to learn. Teachers learning new techniques and activities for their classrooms. (below)

Farmers learning how to improve their beekeeping. (above)

Climate Change Adaptation

Early Burning – Fire breaks

Wild uncontrolled fires are becoming a more frequent occurrence all over the world and are extremely destructive. Recent scientific research has shown how these carbon monoxide gases from fires in Africa travel across the planet on winds high up in the atmosphere and are being deposited in other continents when it rains. During the dry times of the year it is said that as much as 30% of global CO2 emissions comes from Africa’s wild uncontrolled fires.

These fires are particularly destructive during the dry months when the grass and other vegetation are at its driest. Many trees and seedlings, not to mention biodiversity, are destroyed affecting potential for regrowth and reducing the ground cover and exposing the soil to further degradation from the sun and erosion at the onset of the next rains. It is also responsible for the loss of habitat and biodiversity. Many human lives and property are lost during this time.

The Kariba REDD+ Project (KRP) has put measures in place to mitigate these damaging effects of fire through its community and national awareness fire fighting and early burning program. Each year KRP does extensive fire fighting training and awareness at community and ward level where communities are trained to make fireguards (fire breaks) around their villages and fields and also on techniques to stop and control these wild fires.

From these trainings community fire fighting teams are selected and they are equipped with basic fire fighting tools. In addition, the KRP engages members of the communities to do early burning and road maintenance.

It is called early burning because of the time of the year when this is done. If it was later, in the driest time of the year, such fires would be too hot to control. The purpose of these early burns is to reduce the fuel load of the area, preventing fires that occur later in the dry season from getting out of hand and causing much destruction. These early controlled burns also allow seedlings a chance to grow and establish.

Village fireguard making; before and after clearing 9m wide firebreaks.

Climate Change Adaptation

Notice how the small shrubs and trees are still green and unaffected by early burning (top)

Designated roads are cleared of all vegetation to act as additional fire breaks.

Case Studies

Waste to Energy

The Reppie ‘Waste to Energy’ facility in Addis Ababa converts city waste into electricity. The first of its kind in Africa the facility was set up by a young Ethiopian entrepreneur called Samuel Alemayehu. Reppie burns city waste, what used to be dumped on refuge tips around the city. The waste, all kinds of solid waste, is burned in sealed drums called incinerators at temperatures up to 1,800°C, the heat turns water into steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. Modern technology is used to stop toxins being released into the atmosphere. So even though organic matter is burned, CO2 is not released into the atmosphere. Other advantages are that thirty million litres of water is recovered from the waste (water is scarce in Ethiopia), ash from the incinerator is used to make building bricks and >100 local people are employed.

Reppie solves the problem of ugly, unhealthy and polluting land-fill sites, growing demand for electricity and need to reduce carbon emissions. The incinerator burns 1,400 tons of rubbish every day, in 2017 that was 80% of Addis Abbaba’s rubbish, and it produces 185 million.

KW hours of electricity a year, enough to supply 3 million people, 30% of the city’s household energy needs in 2017. Reppie is part of Ethiopia’s plans to create a “climate-resilient green economy” and to meet the country’s target to reduce carbon emissions by 64% over 14 years – at the same time as increasing electricity supply by 20 – 25% every year! They estimate that converting the city’s CO2 into energy like this is equivalent to planting 900,000 trees a year in climate change mitigation.

Film: RECYCLING RUBBISH, is about one man’s successful business collecting and recycling neighbourhood waste.

A small business recycling waste to make fuel briquettes in Kenya.

Case Studies

Transforming Manure into Electricity

The Bronkhorstspruit Biogas plant in Gauteng South Africa (below) is another first – the first industrial scale, commercial biogas plant in Africa using organic waste and predominantly manure to produce electricity. Since 2015 it has provided electricity to power a nearby BMW car factory. The waste – 300 tonnes of cow manure a day, food waste from different companies and abattoir waste – are mixed with water and bacteria and then put in huge tanks called digesters where anaerobic digestion (fermentation) takes place. Methane gas is produced, which is collected into tanks and used to drive big engines (just like huge car engines) that generate electricity. The digestion produces a nutrient rich sludge which is dried and sold as fertiliser. Twenty thousand (20,000) tons of fertiliser are produced every year – a valuable by-product.

The Bronkhorstspruit plant is 40 minute drive from Johannesburg. It is in a farming area on a huge cattle ranch that has 25,000 cattle. These two factors mean that there is a constant supply of manure as well as waste from local fruit and vegetable processing companies, ice cream producers and other businesses – waste that would be dumped and causing pollution if it wasn’t recycled. Water used at the plant is waste, from storm dams on the cattle farm. Clean energy reduces CO2 emissions, decreases water pollution & decreases land-fill and waste dumping.

Zero waste to Landfill – is the goal of councils and government across Africa

Another ground-breaking Waste to Energy plant opened in Athlone, Capetown in 2017. It is a biogas plant that recycles 10% of Cape Town’s municipal waste into useful products. Five hundred tonnes of solid city waste a day is converted into bottled gas that is sold for cooking, into liquid CO2 used in food and other industries, and into fertiliser. In the future the Athlone plant will also produce building bricks, roofing tiles and other products, all from city waste.

Small scale waste processing projects

The same processes being used at industrial scale in the examples above can be used in your community – for your home, school, farm, small business or neighbourhood.

One man’s waste is another man’s gold!

Action sheet 66. Biogas

Film: BIOGAS, about a community in Tanzania producing cooking gas.

Case Studies

Sustainability Education

In Cameroon UNAFAS and Protestant education authorities use environment, sustainability and climate change issues like those described and explained in this booklet, to make school learning more interesting and relevant to everyday life. New activities and sometimes new courses are used to integrate issues like waste management, gardening, energy use and sustainability into routine school teaching and learning. Teachers receive training. They often use the ideas and skills they acquire in their personal lives and communities as well as for teaching in school.

In the picture on page 28 teachers are at a workshop practising how to make and use paper mache. They used waste papers and water to make paper mache masks. Their nursery school pupils helped to collect the waste papers. The children also painted the masks (below & right). The children learned craft skills, they learned about keeping their environment clean and about recycling and reusing waste.

Paper mache can also be used to make decorative items, signs and many different kinds of teaching aids. Paper mache costs nothing and is great fun!

Action sheet 34. Paper Mash

Film: Learn how to make things from Paper Mash in the film, Recycling paper

Case Studies

How many trees does it take to cook a meal?

Trainee teachers working with UNAFAS, ISTP and the Evangelical University in Cameroon designed a practical that demonstrates the benefits of simple, affordable, even home-made improved cookstoves. They use it to teach topics in home economics, science, maths, geography and other subjects. Students learn how to reduce fuel wood consumption, how to make cooking easier, quicker and safer. Above all they learn how to reduce carbon emissions at their own household level.

The class is divided into groups. Each group cooks the same meal, using the same quantity of ingredients, but each using a different type of stove. In the photograph, a metal stove, a clay stove, an open fireplace and a mud stove were used.

When food is ready each group calculates the weight of wood consumed (below) and the time taken for cooking (right). The results are discussed along with cleanliness and other advantages and disadvantages of each stove. Follow-up lessons in different curriculum subjects and school clubs explore the results and related topics. These range from energy, combustion, heat transfer and materials in physics to home economics and family health, public and environmental health, technology, sustainable development, climate change and conservation.

Case Studies

This kind of Sustainability Education helps learners to build knowledge, as well as skills and competencies that help them in their everyday lives.

You may like to try this exercise at home, in your church or community groups.

Below – The weight of wood is recorded at the start of cooking and at the end of cooking. This enables the consumption to be calculated. The results for each model of stove are compared. The student here is a maths teacher. He used the numbers from this exercise in his maths lessons in secondary schools.

Do you think education can change the way we live our lives?

Is there anything you were taught at school, on a course or from someone in the community that has influenced how you behave or tackle particular problems in your life?

Case Studies

Carbon Green Africa’s Kariba REDD+ Project, Zimbabwe

The Kariba REDD+ Project is located in northwestern Zimbabwe on the shore of Lake Kariba. It covers an area of 800,000 hectares of communally owned woodland (marked in blue on the map, below)

The project is community-based, run by a private company in partnership with local councils and the local population. They work together to remove the causes of deforestation and forest degradation in ways that also improve livelihoods, there are examples of how they do this earlier in this booklet – on pages 20 - 30.

REDD is an acronym for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, it creates financial value for the carbon stored in forests and woodland. Carbon credits are sold to people and organisations who produce a lot of greenhouse gases, they may be anywhere in the

world but the money is invested in projects like Kariba REDD+ to use for mitigation activities. Before this project started a baseline study was carried out to identify the major causes of deforestation in the area. Based on this, the activities you can read about above were identified as ways to mitigate the deforestation and degradation occurring there. The funds raised from selling the carbon credits are then used for training and support to interested people and groups in the project area. They are motivated to participate because of the benefits brought to their every day lives – more sustainable farming techniques, better education and nutrition, higher incomes and employment, etc. The carbon credits could be seen as a kind of fine paid by people or organisations who produce a lot of greenhouse gases, but they are bought by choice. Some organisations buy carbon credits simply to help resolve the global climate change problem.

References

Photo credits

Agaba Denis, pages 7 & 8.

Carbon Green Africa, pages 10, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 (top), 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 36.

Dzelagha Banboye Frederick, page 7.

ISTP, page 29.

Mokolodi Nature Reserve, p11.

Penelope Fraser, pages 1, 12, 32, 33.

Kt Miller / polarbearsinternational.org, page 18.

Sah Terence Animbom, page 14.

Sarah Watson, pages 11, 26, 31.

Serge A. Kamgang, page 2.

TUSK, pages 11, 26.

UNAFAS, pages 24, 28, 34, 35.

Artwork Credits

RJ Fraser ETA, Diagrams on pages 6, 7, 8 & 9.

Carbon Green Africa, map on page 39.

References

-www.weather-climate.org.uk

-www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/05/addis-ababa-reppie-trash-into-energy/ -www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_ weather.html

-www.bio2watt.com

-www.boschprojects.co.za/

-www.saippa.org.za/Portals/24/Documents/Presentations/BBP%20-%20 SAIPPA%2016032015.pdf

-Forest regeneration research unit. 2005. How to Plant a Forest: The Principles and Practice of Restoring Tropical Forests. Biology Department, Science Faculty, Chiang Mai University, Thailand.

-United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 2007. Climate Change: Impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation in developing countries

-West African Coastal Towns Swallowed by Ocean. July 14, 2016. Emilie Iob on VOA.

-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Accessed Nov 2018. http:// www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/sres/regional/index.php?idp=30

-Global Education Monitoring Report. 2017/18. UNESCO.

-How did the last ice age affect Southern Africa? The World around us. www.wits.ac.za accessed Nov 2018. Meteorological Office. www.metoffice. gov.uk

-Cameroon our Home. 2014. Environmental and Conservation Glossary. Tama Books, Yaounde Cameroon.

-PACE Educators booklet. Glossary of Environmental Terms. Siren Conservation Education and TUSK Trust. www.paceproject.net

-Mark F. Meier. 2020. Glacier. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Published January 23, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/ science/glacier. Accessed 24 January 2020.

-Patti Nyman. 2015. Methane vs. Carbon Dioxide: A Greenhouse Gas Showdown. One Green Planet. www.tusk.org

www.tusk.org

Somebody somewhere has found a solution! The idea behind PACE is to spread simple solutions to environmental problems between communities across Africa. From fuel-saving stoves to rainwater harvesting, solving human - wildlife conflict, to compost making to tree farming. PACE shares information about the environment and the very practical ways in which people are addressing their common environmental problems. There are ten modules in the PACE pack, this booklet is part of the Energy module.

We all depend on energy for cooking, heating, cooling, powering equipment, vehicles and machines. Despite the vast range of potential energy sources in Africa fuel scarcity and fuel poverty are increasingly a problem, a problem for households and a problem for the environment. The PACE energy module looks at how individuals and communities can better manage the energy sources they already use, and describes alternative renewable and sustainable sources of energy. Energy and Climate Change are inextricably linked. This booklet uses simple language, examples and case studies from across Africa to explain what Climate change is, some of the causes, effects, how we can deal with changes already happening and help reduce further change.

PACE

Contact pace@tusk.org

www.paceproject.net.

Acknowledgements

TUSK thanks DHL, ICAP and the Vodaphone Foundation for their significant and generous support of PACE, which has been fundamental to its success to date.