Browsing by Author "Malassi, Joseph Longunza."

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The climate change and freshwaters nexus: possible implications for water treaties on the transboundary tributaries of the Congo River.
(2019) Malassi, Joseph Longunza.; Kidd, Michael Anthony.
While it is widely predicted that climate change will cause a significant decline of water availability in diverse regions of the planet, it is also established that the same phenomenon will cause frequent and intense floods in many other regions of the globe, including the Congo River basin, in Central Africa. This basin, which houses the second-largest tropical rain forest in the world is under threat of seasonal floods due to climate change. Studies concerning the impact of climate change on the basin’s hydrology have revealed that the phenomenon will cause an increase of approximately 10 to 15 percent of the run-off of the basin, and a rise of about 11 to 17 percent of the Congo River’s discharge, by the year 2050. The Congo River is the main outlet of the Congo basin. It discharges approximately 45,000 cubic metres of waters per second in the Atlantic Ocean, of which one third are the waters from the Congo River’s transboundary tributaries. Eleven to seventeen percent in addition to what already exists suggests a higher likelihood of intense seasonal floods across the Congo River basin. The 1997 United Nations Convention on the non-navigational uses of international watercourses has required water cooperation across river basins in order to jointly adopt the appropriate measures including the laws, to address the predicted impacts of climate change. However, the consulted literature has given very little interest in this matter as far as the Congo River basin is concerned. Furthermore, no previous study has examined the legal implications thereof. This thesis has, therefore, tried to comprehend the implications that these climate change impacts on the hydrology of the Congo River basin will have on the laws that govern the Congo River and its transboundary tributaries. This thesis has at first assessed the legal framework that governs the Congo River and its transboundary tributaries against Cooley & Gleick’s criteria framework, which verifies the integration of the climate change dimension in transboundary water treaties. At a second stage, this thesis has undertaken a comparative analysis of the said regime with the flood management regime that is in place in the Rhine River basin. From the analysis undertaken in this thesis, it has transpired that the legal regime that governs the Congo River and its transboundary tributaries has not adequately integrated the climate change dimension. Furthermore, it is deprived of any flood management provision or mechanism, thus suggesting an alarming vulnerability to floods along the Congo River especially. Inspired by the Rhine flood management regime, and having elucidated the hydro politics at play across the Congo River basin, this thesis has formulated some critical recommendations that aim at equipping the basin with an adequate flood management legal regime.
The contribution of developing countries in the global effort to tackle climate change: analysis of the transition from the Kyoto protocol to the Paris agreement.
(2016) Malassi, Joseph Longunza.; Kidd, Michael Anthony.
The urgency to reduce current greenhouse gases emissions from both developing and developed country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to stabilise the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius or well below at the end of the present century has led the international climate change diplomacy to adopt the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change in replacement to the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2020. Although substantially nuanced in its approach, the Paris Agreement represents as a new climate change treaty, a significant regime shift for developing countries, because it puts them under a legally binding obligation to undertake emission mitigation activities, conversely to the Kyoto Protocol which left them free from any obligation. This is because the objective of stabilising the global temperature increase at 2 degrees Celsius as said above requires considerable mitigation efforts from all countries, urged to undertake a transition towards fully decarbonised economies by the half of this century. In order to determine to what extent the greenhouse gases emission reduction regime has for developing country shifted from what it was under the Kyoto Protocol to what it has become under the Paris Agreement, the study focuses on two following questions: (i) What are the differences and the similarities between the greenhouse gases emissions mitigation regime under both treaties, and, (ii) what are the implications of those probable differences or similarities for the developing countries? Whereas at a first glance the analysis shows that there are not much substantial elements of comparison between the two regimes instituted by the two climate change treaties, a closer consideration of the characteristics of the new universal regime under the Paris Agreement has offered pathways for an intensive regime comparison between Kyoto and Paris. Analysis further allowed us throw lights on the implications of the differences and similarities of both regimes for the group of developing countries. The study at last makes valuable recommendations for a successful implementation of the Paris Agreement by Developing countries, especially the poorest among them.