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At the latest climate change summit, COP17 in Durban, South Africa, only one school project was showcased to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon: Seychelles’ school rainwater harvesting project.
Coordinated by the Department of Education, this project aims to raise awareness that harvesting rainwater is a means of adapting to climate change and saving on water costs.
Climate change is a high priority on Seychelles’ agenda. Officials have long been vocal on the issue, with efforts underway to establish an agency in the UK to represent the concerns of small island states. The archipelago is particularly vulnerable because coastal development is just a few metres above sea level, while a large number of outer islands are virtually flat.
“It all comes down to the sustainability concept and how our environmental policies provide the necessary safeguards and checks,” said Joel Morgan, Minister of Home Affairs, Environment, Transport and Energy, adding that energy efficient technologies which reduce carbon emissions need not hinder development.
The new headquarters of the state-owned Seychelles Petroleum Company (SEYPEC) is based on the idea of energy efficiency. All light bulbs and windows are energy saving and air conditioning is controlled to minimise consumption. Meanwhile, one of SEYPEC’s refuelling tankers is an energy saving vessel which consumes less than half the amount of fuel of other vessels travelling the same distance.
Nonetheless, it is a far more difficult task convincing industrialised nations to take concrete action on climate change. Leaders are being realistic, said Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Paul Adam, in recognising that no agreement can be reached by telling businesses to foot the entire bill.
At the end of COP17, the international community took one step closer to a deal and extended the Kyoto Protocol, preserving the only legally binding instrument with emission reduction targets and timetables for developed countries.
Still, these results received mixed reviews, notes BirdLife International, the world’s biggest conservation partnership.
“Although a step in the right direction, there remains a profound mismatch between the level of action demanded by our best scientific knowledge and the current level of ambition of the world’s governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Melanie Heath, BirdLife’s head of policy. “We are currently on a path towards 3ºC to 5ºC of climate change in this century, with likely disastrous consequences.”
BirdLife has been involved in Seychelles for the last 35 years under the moniker Nature Seychelles and promotes sustainability, wildlife conservation and educational programming. In a groundbreaking project funded by USAID, it is growing corals in underground nurseries and replanting them in degraded areas. BirdLife also owns the carbon neutral Cousin Island.
To offset 8,000 tonnes of tourism-related emissions, the UK-based carbon management company Carbon Clear advised Nature Seychelles to purchase carbon credits from a clean stove project in Darfur, a geothermal energy plant project in Brazil and a clean energy project in Indonesia.
“The environment has to have some meaning,” said Nirmal Shah, CEO of Nature Seychelles. “It’s not worth having airy fairy schemes. We make it real.” |
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