China financing renewable energy

. .. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .. .

Information drawn from various sources as indicated

China is playing a major role in financing renewable energy.

According to the UNEP study of Global Trends in Renewable Energy , as of 2015, China has invested $101.9 billion in renewable energy, 36% of the world’s total. The US is a distant second, at $44.1 billion.

china
New investment in renewable energy by country and asset class, 2015, and growth on 2014 – Source: UNEP, Bloomberg new energy finance
(Click on image to enlarge)

Of course, the bulk of their investment is in China itself, but their investment is also noticeable in Latin America.

According to PV Magazine, Argentina is investing US $ 340 million in three solar facilities to generate 100 megawatts each. They are being built by three Chinese enterprises: Power China, Shanghai Electric and Talseun

Also in Argentina, according to Rio Negro, the country is investing US $250 million in wind farms to be supplied by Envision Energy, a Chinese firm.

Meanwhile, in Mexico’s inaugural power auction in April, according to PV Magazine , the Chinese solar power firm JinkoSolar signed long-term power purchase agreements with Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission for three solar projects due to produce 188 MW by April 2018. According to the Bloomberg Company JinkoSolar is one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

According to Business News Americas, almost all the major solar power module manufacturers are Chinese, while five of the top ten wind blade manufacturers are Chinese – led by Goldwind, the biggest wind turbine supplier in the world. Goldwind has said it is interested in developing manufacturing facilities in Brazil and has also supplied turbines to projects in Ecuador, Panama, Bolivia and Chile.

Looking to the future, according the the UNEP study, China’s R&D spending challenged Europe’s for the first time in 2015, each investing $2.8 billion.. In third place, the US edged up to $1.5 billion. Solar continues to dominate renewable energy R&D, with spending rising to $4.5 billion and equal to that in all the other sectors combined.

Question for this article:
global, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Swiss ban new nuclear reactors

. .. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .. .

A blog by Craig Morris in Energy Transition – The German Energiewende

Another setback for the “nuclear renaissance”: Switzerland voted on Friday to focus more on renewables and efficiency. For the first time ever, new nuclear plants are officially off the table—though admittedly, none were planned. The Swiss just “adopted the Energiewende,” writes the Neue Züricher Zeitung. Is no one paying attention? Craig Morris has the details.

swiss
The sun sets on the Leibstadt nuclear power plant, as seen from Dörflingen, Switzerland (Photo by Hansueli Krapf, edited, CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Click on image to enlarge)

Now here’s a news item you probably haven’t heard, at least judging from what I can gather on the internet: Switzerland’s new Energy Act (Energiegesetz, PDF) of 30 September 2016. You would think that, given its scope and Switzerland’s central role in Europe’s power sector, the following contents would have warranted a mention at, say, Reuters, CNN, Bloomberg, and Co.:

* The generation of non-hydro renewable power is to grow from 1.7 TWh last year (PDF in German and French) to 4.4 TWh by 2020 and 11.4 TWh by 2035 (nearly tenfold).

* “Per capita energy consumption” is to shrink by 16 percent from 2000 to 2020 and by 43 percent by 2035. “Per capita” is an important caveat in a small country whose population can easily grow quickly. (Switzerland’s is up around 10 percent over the past decade, like even smaller Norway’s.) Unfortunately, the law does not specify the most important aspect here: final or primary energy?

* Power consumption is to drop by 3 percent by 2020 and 13 percent by 2035.

* The law also, confusingly, speaks of “expanding” hydropower to 37.4 TWh by 2035 – even though it came in at 39.5 TWh last year. (If any readers know how to dissect this, please drop us a comment below.)

* It amends the 2003 Nuclear Energy Act (here’s the old one) to ban permits for new nuclear reactors. It also bans the reprocessing and export of spent fuel rods for reprocessing (except for research purposes with the consent of the Bundesrat). And “changes may not be made to existing nuclear plants.”

(Continued on right side of page)

Question for this article:

Are we making progress in renewable energy?

Is there a future for nuclear energy?

(Article continued from left side of page)

There’s a lot more in the law, much of which deals with the policy mechanisms (level of feed-in tariffs, etc.). But what’s above is a real breakthrough. So why has it gone unreported in English?

One reason may be that a referendum could change everything, as the Swiss press explains (in German). But the report also suggests there is little support for such a referendum in industry, so the referendum may not even take place; in other words, the Swiss business world is happier with renewables and efficiency than with old-school energy production, consumption, and waste.

Another referendum will be held on 27 November 2016: the one for a closure of the existing reactors (in German). It does not necessarily stand a good chance of passing; parliamentarians overwhelmingly reject it (it’s an idea of the Swiss Greens). On the other hand, a recent survey of the public revealed support for a total phaseout by 2029 (basically, a limited service life of 45 years per reactor). This idea may have as much as 58 percent public support (in German)—possibly another example of politicians out of touch with the people. The first reactor to be shut down would then go offline in 2019. Leibstadt, the youngest, would be the last to go in 2029.

Opponents of the phaseout referendum will reportedly not try to reject the idea of a nuclear phaseout outright. Instead, they will try to win over the “silent majority” of undecided voters in the middle of the political spectrum by simply arguing that setting a specific date or service life for all reactors makes no sense. This clever tactic is likely to succeed, but a quick comparison with the historic debate in Germany over a nuclear phaseout suggests something less savory for nuclear supporters. Remember that slippery slope? By the time you resort to the tactic of “setting a date for a phaseout makes no sense,” you have reached the bottom of it. There is no way back up the slope for nuclear at that point.

Oddly, the Swiss press outlets all report that the new law is part of the government’s “Energy Strategy 2050” even though “2050” is never even mentioned in the new Act. This law is in fact just a starting point. By the end of this year, we will probably know what direction the country is headed.

One wonders when the international media will catch on. Maybe never—or did you know that Switzerland implemented a nuclear phaseout (by 2034) in the wake of Fukushima back in 2011?

Craig Morris (@PPchef) is the lead author of German Energy Transition. He is co-author of Energy Democracy, the first history of Germany’s Energiewende, and is currently Senior Fellow at the IASS.

Europe, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

You’ll never believe how cheap new solar power is

.. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ..

An article by Joe Romm in Think Progress (abbreviated)

Solar energy has grown 100-fold in this country [USA] in the past decade. Globally, solar has doubled seven times since 2000, and Dubai received a bid recently for 800 megawatts of solar at a stunning “US 2.99 cents per kilowatt hour” — unsubsidized! For context, the average residential price for electricity in the United States is 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.

solar
Solar’s exponentially declining costs and exponentially rising installations
(the y-axis is a logarithmic scale).
(Click on image to enlarge)

Solar energy has been advancing considerably faster than anyone expected just a few years ago thanks to aggressive market-based deployment efforts around the globe. Since it’s hard to keep up with the speed-of-light changes, and this is the fuel that will power more and more of the global economy in the near future, here are all the latest charts and facts to understand it. If you are looking for one chart to sum up the whole solar energy miracle, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Chairman Michael Liebreich has one from his keynote address at BNEF’s annual conference in April titled “In Search of the Miraculous” [see chart above]:

Thanks to sustained long-term deployment programs, Liebreich explained, “We’ve seen the costs come down by a factor of 150 since 1975. We’ve seen volume up by 115,000.” “How much more miracle-y do you need your miracles to be,” Liebreich added.

What that chart doesn’t reveal is that the price drop and the sales volume increase are directly linked. There is a learning curve: Over the past four decades, for every doubling in scale of the solar industry, the price of solar modules has dropped roughly 26 percent. . .

BNEF projects that by 2040, the world will invest an astonishing $3.4 trillion in solar. That’s more than the projected cumulative investment of $2.1 trillion for all fossil fuels — and $1.1 trillion in new nuclear — combined.

The result of these investments and the continued learning by solar (and wind) makes “these two technologies the cheapest ways of producing electricity in many countries during the 2020s and in most of the world in the 2030s. . . ”

This year we learned “City of Palo Alto considers solar power contract at under $37/MWh.” Bloomberg reported last week that “Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s NV Energy agreed to pay 3.87 cents a kilowatt-hour for power from a 100-megawatt project that First Solar Inc. is developing.”

It is worth remembering that U.S. solar power bids include the 30 percent Investment Tax Credit. According to one analysis, NV Energy’s “$.0387/kWh would potentially turn into about $.07/kWh if we backed out the 30% Federal Tax Credit and 60% depreciation in Year One.”

The bids seen around the world this year without subsidies or incentives are even more stunning. Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) received a bid this year for 800 megawatts at a jaw-dropping “US 2.99 cents per kilowatt hour.”

Two other bids were below US 4 cents/kWh, and the last two bids were both below 4.5 cents/kWh — again all of these bids were without subsidies!

That 2.99 cents bid is way down from a 2015 deal Dubai signed for more than 1000 megawatts at 5.84 cents over 25 years. So Dubai has seen a 50 percent price drop in solar in just 18 months.

(Continued on right side of page)

Question for this article:

Are we making progress in renewable energy?

(Article continued from left side of page)

And these prices aren’t unique to the Middle East. As Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported in April, Enel Green power signed a contract for $.036/kWh in in Mexico — 3.6 cents.

With prices dropping so fast, sales of solar PV [photovoltaic] systems have been soaring, as you can imagine.

From 2005 through 2015, annual PV sales in this country went up 100-fold! And projections suggest that solar sales may double this year, driven by Congress’s five-year renewal (with phase-out) of the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC). . .

The solar miracle has been driven by major state, national, and international policies. BNEF Chair Liebreich calls this “The March of the Price Signal” — the rapid expansion of global deployment programs, especially market-based mechanisms such as renewable portfolio standards and reverse auctions.

Unfortunately, other countries have had bigger and more reliable deployment programs whereas our erratic policies generally diminish or disappear whenever and wherever conservatives assume control. In the past decade in particular, massive government-led deployment policies in China and Germany have been a major driver of the world’s stunning price drop.

The good news is that solar power in this country has a very bright future, thanks to the renewal of the ITC. By one recent projection, the U.S. could hit 100 gigawatts total installed capacity by 2021. That said, India also plans to hit 100 gigawatts by 2022.

China, however, plans to triple solar PV capacity to 150 gigawatts installed by 2020! So the race is definitely on.

No wonder the International Energy Agency concluded last fall: “Driven by continued policy support, renewables account for half of additional global generation, overtaking coal around 2030 to become the largest power source.”

The ‘Other’ Form Of Solar Energy, Which Can Run At Night

Earlier this month, I wrote about the “other” form of solar, concentrating solar thermal power, which uses sunlight to heat water and uses the steam to drive a turbine and generator. That heat can be stored over 20 times more cheaply than electricity — and much more efficiently — so CSP [Concentrated Solar Power] can provide power long after the sun has gone down.

Now that China appears to be placing a large bet on solar thermal electric, it seems likely CSP will also start coming down the learning curve, which will help it increase sales, which in turn will keep it coming down the learning curve — a virtuous circle that PV is already benefiting from.

The 2014 STE Technology Roadmap from the International Energy Agency (IEA) projected that while PV could generate 16 percent of the world’s electricity by 2050, as much as 11 percent could be generated by STE [solar thermal energy] at the same time.

Given how fast solar PV has been coming down in price — and given the world’s commitment in Paris last December to keep ratcheting down carbon pollution in the coming decades to keep total global warming “well below 2°C” — it seems entirely possible if not likely that solar power will outperform the IEA’s scenario.

Indeed, it’s precisely because clean energy has been moving at the speed of light that “almost everything you know about climate change solutions is probably outdated,” as I’ve been detailing for months. Stay tuned to this channel for more surprises.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

global, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Urban leadership in the US for renewable energy

.. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ..

Excerpts from the newsletter and website of Renewable Cities

Following on the heels of the City of Boulder’s September announcement that the community will move to 100% renewable electricity by 2030, Utah’s Park City has just committed to to the same target by 2032.

renewable

From Colorado to Utah to California, from mountain cities to coastal metropolises, the diversity of local governments in pursuit of wind, water, waste, and solar power demonstrates the breadth of the movement for 100% RE [renewable energy] in cities.

That’s not all—with the Los Angeles’ City Council directing staff to develop a plan for 100% renewable energy, the editorial board of North America’s most influential newspaper, The New York Times, has taken notice. Citing climate impacts and the power of cities to move the needle on energy production and consumption, the editorial board says  about LA: “The next step will be to develop a realistic but ambitious timeline for the city to end its dependence on fossil fuels.”

In July of 2016, Renewables Cities together with the Sierra Club, ICLEI USA, and the City of San Francisco Department of the Environment, brought together a group of 20 local governments from around the USA and Canada to learn and share ideas on how to transition to 100% renewable energy.

(Continued on right side of page)

Question for this article:

Are we making progress in renewable energy?

(Article continued from left side of page)

Leading and learning cities—from Denver to Chicago, from Vancouver to Rochester—arrived in San Francisco for the three-day dialogue to hear about a range of new research and tools and to work collaboratively on policy solutions through a facilitated dialogue process. Participants included mayors, councillors and supervisors, energy managers, engineers, planners, sustainability directors, and economic development officers.

Along with these local government leaders, we brought together companies that are implementing 100% renewable energy, including Apple, and that are helping municipalities reach their 100% RE goals, including Google’s Project Sunroof. Groups such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance also participated and showcased their tools and best practices.

We’re proud to release the Outcomes Report from the North American Dialogue on 100% Renewable Energy in Cities and would like to thank the California Clean Energy Fund and Sunpower for supporting this dialogue.

Download the Outcomes Report in web or print versions (PDF). For more information, including resources, presentations, photos, and blog posts, see the dialogue website.

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article)

North America, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Countries Adopt Kigali Amendment to Phase Down HFCs

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

A blog by David Doniger and Alex Hillbrand for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

At 6:55 on Saturday morning [October 14], more than 140 countries sealed a landmark deal, called the Kigali Amendment, to phase down the powerful climate-warming pollutants called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) under the Montreal Protocol, the treaty that saved the ozone layer.

nrdc
Source: Guus Velders, RMI, reprinted by NRDC by permission
(click on image to enlarge)

Almost ten years after NRDC and others first proposed amending the Montreal treaty to curb HFCs, countries reached a deal that will avoid rampant growth in these dangerous chemicals, eliminate most current uses over time, and replace them with a new generation of alternative chemicals and products that are climate-friendlier and more energy-efficient.

The HFC agreement establishes timetables for all developed and developing countries to freeze and then reduce their production and use of HFCs, chemicals used in air conditioning, refrigeration, insulating foams, and other applications.

HFCs are the fastest growing climate pollutants, and they pack hundreds to thousands of times the climate-warming punch of carbon dioxide, pound for pound. Scientists estimate that HFCs could add up to 0.5° Celsius to global temperatures by century’s end if their growth is not checked, dooming our chances to meet the Paris Climate Agreement’s target of holding warming below 2.0°Celsius.

But the new agreement will avoid this disaster. A new analysis by Dr. Guus Velders and colleagues projects that the Kigali amendment will avoid nearly 90 percent of the temperature increase that HFCs could have caused.

NRDC estimates that the agreed HFC phase-down will avoid the equivalent of more than 80 billion tons of CO2 over the next 35 years. (This includes controls on emissions of HFC-23 emissions occurring as a byproduct of HCFC-22 production, which also was agreed in Kigali.)

This is equivalent to knocking out the entire planet’s fossil-fuel CO2 emissions for more than two years.

(Interview continued in the right side of the page)

Question for this article:

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?

(Interview continued from the left side of the page)

This is the biggest step to protect against catastrophic climate change that countries have taken in the year since the landmark Paris agreement.

The HFC phase-down will trigger further reductions in CO2 emissions from power plants because more efficient air conditioners and other equipment will require less electricity.

Under the amendment, developed countries agreed to make their first HFCs cuts by 2019; in fact, the U.S., the European Union, and other countries have already started. Developed countries will also take the lead in bringing climate-friendly, energy-efficient alternatives to market.

China, Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, and more than 100 other developing countries committed to freeze their HFC production and use by 2024, and reduce in subsequent steps. India, Gulf States, and Pakistan agreed to make HFC reductions on a slower track, starting with a freeze in 2028 (three years earlier than India had originally proposed).

Developed nations committed to provide additional funds through the Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund to support developing countries in achieving their commitments. The agreement also opens the door for countries that choose to move faster to benefit from early MLF funding, and for the MLF to support energy efficiency improvements alongside the reduction of HFCs.

While funding for the MLF’s next three-year cycle will be negotiated next year, developed country parties have pledged new funding to support developing countries’ adoption of alternatives. A group of countries pledged to provide an additional $27 million in “fast start” financing for next year, and this will be matched by $53 million from a coalition of 19 philanthropies, for a total of $80 million.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking to the plenary Friday afternoon, urged countries to deliver an ambitious agreement and to bet on the future of clean energy technology, noting that “ten years in this world of technology is a lifetime – many lifetimes, in fact.”

So, on a warm Kigali night in October, the Montreal Protocol that saved the ozone layer has taken on its shoulders the responsibility to help solve the global climate crisis. If this treaty succeeds as spectacularly as before, tonight will mark a major turning point in the fight to keep our planet safe for generations to come.

global, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Brazil: Restorative justice to be expanded in Rio Grande do Sul

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .

An article by Suzy Scarton in the Jornal de Comércio (translated by CPNN)

Although innovative, the practice is simple. Restorative justice aims to deal with violations by put ting the victim and aggressor face to face, so that the latter can reflect on the damage caused to the first. The initiative, already deployed in the capital and in some cities, such as Caxias do Sul and Santa Maria, became statewide on the afternoon of Thursday [October 13]. At the Piratini Palace, the heads of the Executive, the Judiciary, the Legislature, the Public Ministry and the State Public Defender signed a protocol that allows the Rio Grande do Sul to seek social peace by this means.

brazil
The protocol development is an initiative of the State Court
JONATHAN HECKLER / JC

The protocol sets out four lines of action: promoting actions of social mobilization and dissemination of culture, promoting the restorative approach and the culture of peace, training human resources to apply the concepts of restorative mode, as well as the implementation of programs related to it. The first task of the Executive Committee responsible for the implementation of the methodology will relate to activities that are already being developed.

Precursor of this method in the state, the judge Leoberto Brancher, of the Children and Youth Regional Juvenile Court in Caxias do Sul, explains that the restoration plans to solve crimes and conflicts based on dialogue and accountability. “It places an emphasis not on the discussion of laws, but of people and relationships in order to repair the consequences of these problems,” he explains. Since the Court, the Legislative Assembly, the Ministry of Justice and the Public Defender’s Office are involved in the project, Brancher believes that all services will be united in the resolution of conflicts which would otherwise go to the judiciary.

(article continued in right column)

(Click here for the original article in Portuguese)

Discussion question

Restorative justice, What does it look like in practice?

(article continued from left column)

In practice, restorative justice can work with or without the involvement of the victim. “The victim has been damaged. Instead of using punishment, we propose a constructive action: the offender needs to implement a compensation plan for the damage that was caused,” says the magistrate. The victim may prefer not to participate, in which case the alternative is to involve family members and people involved in the community to which the offender belongs. “There are cases where we end up with a family strengthening circle, to strengthen ties.” The judge hearing the case can even suspend it until a compensation plan is drawn up. If it is considered adequate, the judge can decide that the compensation plan is implemented instead of the sentence.

Brancher adds, however, that the success of the method depends on the training of a facilitator, since the work must be done face to face. “The measure has preventative efficacy. We have a thousand facilitators trained in Caxias do Sul to work on prevention. Then we form a group to resolve conflict situations,” said the magistrate. In addition to avoiding conflicts, the measure also seeks to inhibit recidivism, as it aims to strengthen the adhesion of the subject to compliance with a socially acceptable conduct. “The intention is to follow offenders without their being sentenced. They are pressured to recognize its value, as people close to them are witnessing and charging them,” he explains.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, Latin America

World Culture Forum 2016 Concludes with Bali Declaration Launched

.. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .. .

A press release from the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture published by ACN News Wire

World Culture Forum (WCF) 2016 concluded on October 14 in Bali, Indonesia, with the issuance of the Bali Declaration, consisting of 10 points of commitment, which enable culture to be the driver of sustainable development and urge the UNESCO state members and civil societies to accomplish the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

bali
(Click on image to enlarge)

Read by the Head of WCF 2016 Steering Committee, Ananto Kusuma Seta in the closing ceremony, the Declaration emphasized that all participating countries should incorporate culture at the heart of future development frameworks.

The Bali Declaration contains following issues:

1. Commitment of the UNESCO state members and civil society to work for the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda

2. Promote the culture of peace in order to make an inclusive, just, and tolerable society

3. Implement the points of recommendation from WCF symposiums series

4. Strengthen the role and involvement of the youth in economics, culture, and socio-politics in respect of promoting mutual understanding and equality

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(Article continued from left side of page)

5. Recognize the role of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations to enable culture to contribute to sustainable inclusive development

6. Increase the investment in human capital and empowerment of the local community in developing solutions to the world’s most demanding issues

7. Partner with all the elements of stakeholders to ensure that the effort to address the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda is culture-oriented

8. Support from UNESCO to protect cultural heritages from various forms of threats, including wars and social conflicts

9. Drive the implementation of cultural values into a report mechanism at every stage of Sustainable Development Goals

10. Develop an action framework to be launched at the 39th UNESCO General conference in October 2017

Director General of Culture, Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, Hilmar Farid, stated that the Declaration will soon be followed-up in the general meeting to be held in 2017.

In the same occasion, the representative of the youth group from 39 countries also declared the point of recommendation of IYF 2016, one of which was to develop and make benefit from open source technology to improve education, social, and culture over three years.

For further information, please contact:

Ministry of Education of Culture, Republic of Indonesia
Jalan Jenderal Sudirman Senayan, Jakarta 10270
Phone: +62 21 5711144
Website: www.kemdikbud.go.id

East Asia, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

El Salvador: March rejects ongoing violence and calls for a culture of peace

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .

An article from La Prensa Grafica (translated by CPNN and reprinted as a non-commercial service)

Various educational institutions in the municipality of Sonsonate held a march for peace and for the rejection of violence, intended to raise awareness among people to improve the situation of social harmony. Dozens of students from the Thomas Jefferson National Institute and the Polytechnic Institute of Sonsonate gathered outside city hall, carrying banners calling for the cessation of violence. The students were accompanied by cheerleaders, who to the tune of the music offered a show to the public along the route of the peace march.

salvador

The youth group marched down North 1st Avenue, crossed the street and then took Salarrué Morazan avenue, until they reached the December 14 column.

According to organizers, the march was organized to mark the International Day of Non-Violence.

Sonsonate was in previous years one of the 16 most violent municipalities of the department; however, they have implemented some plans that have significantly reduced the rate of violence. According to statistics from the National Civil Police (PNC), the municipality of Sonsonate ceased to occupy the first place in homicides and has dropped to fifth place, with 26 murders so far this year, compared to 35 last year.

PNC statistics situate Izalco as the more violent than the department of Sonsonate, with 114 homicides so far this year; followed by Nahuizalco, 41; San Julian, 32; Armenia, with 30, and Sonsonate, 26.

Local authorities say the reduction of violence in the departmental capital is due to a number of programs in Sonsonate made by various institutions, with the support of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The intention of those involved in these programs is to improve relationships between children and young people of school age and therefore several of its projects are focused on schools.

(Click here for a Spanish version of this article)

Question related to this article:
DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, Latin America

Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo: The commemoration of the International Day of Peace

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

Excerpts from a report sent to CPNN by Patrick Mulemeri, Congo Peace Network (translated by CPNN)

For the commemoration of the International Day of Peace, activities were held September 21, 2016, in the great hall of MWANGA college. 271 people attended, mainly composed young members of the CPN clubs [Congo Peace Network], their families, guests from partner organizations (Christian AID, UNJHRO, Counterpart International …), the delegation of the University students for peace and social sciences in Butare in Rwanda, as well as local authorities and young people from different local churches.

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Six young local musicians began the celebration
(Click on photo to enlarge)

After presentations of music, poetry and literature and accompanied by an exposition of artwork for peace, there were a series of speeches for peace.

Speeches by young university peace activists from Butare

The students from the Protestant University of Butare, which is in partnership with CPN, were represented by their delegate who spoke about peace in a regional context, as necessary for security, development and freedom. The benefits are not only for everyone at the present time, but above all for generations to come. They demand peaceful coexistance, because, as Gandhi liked to say, an eye for an eye will make us all blind.

(Article continued in the right column)

(Click here for the original version of this article in French)

Question for this article

What has happened this year (2016) for the International Day of Peace?

(Article continued from the left column)

Speech by youth from CPN clubs

The CPN youth speech criticized how young people are being manipulated and used by invisible players to destroy their own lives and society; instead, young people should be involved in the country’s development projects. They congratulated CPN for its training which makes them a vector of peace for development and rehabilitation of the country.

Speech for peace in English by a CPN youth.

A young CPN member read his speech in English. Beginning with decrying what happened in Kinshasa during the month of peace, he commented that while we commemorate the international day of peace, there are those in the refugee camps who suffer in all kinds of weather conditions after being forced to abandon their houses and their fields.

What we are living in the North Kivu province is far from “peace” because every second there are violations of human rights, murder, massacre, murder, kidnapping etc. Whole communities are being killed. We are told they are in conflict, although for decades they lived harmoniously together. Peaceful cohabitation between ethnic communities would not be a problem, were it not for invisible hands that work in the shadows to destroy peace.

Presentation of the book “1000 Youth Peace expressions of CPN”

The celebration of International Peace Day was also an opportunity for CPN to present the book “1000 Youth Peace expressions” which conveys the youth’s expressions of peace through drawings, essays, poems and music.

Africa, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

UN: Ban welcomes announcement of talks between Government of Colombia and National Liberation Army

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An article from the UN News Centre

Welcoming the announcement that formal negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) will begin later this month, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today [October 12] expressed hope that the two sides will reach a sustainable peace agreement as soon as possible.

eln-un

    Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks during the signing ceremony of the peace agreement between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), in Cartagena. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

“The Secretary-General welcomes the announcement that the Government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) will begin formal negotiations […], following more than two years of exploratory conversations,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement.

“This is a source of encouragement to the Colombian people and all those involved in supporting a peaceful and comprehensive end to conflict,” the statement added.

“The Secretary-General hopes the Government and the ELN will work with determination to reach a sustainable peace agreement as soon as possible,” the statement said.

The announcement of the talks to begin on 27 October, in Quito, Ecuador, comes after Colombian voters last week narrowly rejected the historic peace agreement signed by the Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP), the largest rebel group in the South American country.

Despite the outcome of the referendum, Mr. Ban has encouraged the Government and FARC-EP to stay the course for peace with a view to end Colombia’s 50-year conflict.

(Click here for a Spanish version of this article

Question related to this article:
FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, Latin America