After Cyclone Freddy ravaged the Malawian village of Mchenga last year, the Red Cross worked with Nigerian businessman Dozy Mmobuosi to rebuild homes for 45 of the victims, at the request of Malawi’s government.
A few months later, the US government accused Mmobuosi of fraud over his business dealings. Climate Home News visited Mchenga this month and found the new homes have cracks in the walls and floors, with residents scared they will collapse.
Emma Jeremia, a pregnant woman living in one house, said it would have been better to die in the storm than be killed by her house collapsing on her. Simon Mweyeli, who liaised with the Red Cross on behalf of Mchenga’s residents, said the homes can “fall anytime”.
This unsafe housing for cyclone survivors in Malawi, funded by a suspected fraudster, shows why governments need to get the new UN loss and damage fund up and running with decent resources and quality control, climate campaigners told Climate Home.
Cracks in the wall inside one of the homes in Mchenga, Malawi, pictured on May 8, 2024 (Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe)
International climate justice activists said the local testimonies show why funding for disaster victims should come from the governments that have predominantly caused the climate crisis rather than unaccountable benefactors – and recommended that affected people should be involved in designing and building their new homes.
After last year’s devastating cyclone – with the loss and damage fund not yet up and running – the cash-strapped Malawian government went looking for financial help around the world. According to national media, ex-president Bakili Muluzi recruited Nigerian businessman Dozy Mmobuosi.
The day after promising to build the homes – and the same day he was accused by short-selling firm Hindenburg Research of operating a scam company – Mmobuosi received a Malawian diplomatic passport, which is usually reserved for senior politicians, national media reported.
“Such instances highlight why we need a loss and damage fund that empowers affected communities to lead recovery and reconstruction efforts, and not allow politicians or corporations to further their own interests,” said Harjeet Singh, a climate activist who has long advocated for the fund.
In 2022, governments finally agreed at the COP27 climate talks to set up such a fund to channel money from wealthy nations to people in developing countries who have been harmed by climate change. The fund’s board hopes it can start distributing money next year.
Cyclone Freddy strikes
In March last year, Cyclone Freddy travelled from the west coast of Australia across the Indian Ocean over Madagascar and into southern Africa, where it caused floods and mudslides that killed more than 1,000 people in Malawi.
The village of Mchenga, in Malawi’s southern Phalombe district, was among the worst-hit. Its 72-year-old headman Laften Nangazi told Climate Home that 80 people died there in a single day.
He said he saw men, women and children being swept away in despair. “I cried when I saw children dying,” he said, “I saw about 40 people in a tree, and they were there for three days waiting for the water levels to go down.”
When the waters eventually receded, 176 of the village’s families were left homeless – a problem repeated across the country’s south.
Hendry Keinga reacts after he lost a family member during the Mtauchira village mudslide in the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy in Blantyre, Malawi, March 16, 2023. (REUTERS/Esa Alexander)
Looking for funds
Malawi is the world’s tenth poorest country, so government money to rebuild housing was scarce. The international fund for loss and damage, meant to address disasters like this, had just been agreed at COP27 but was not yet up and running.
President Lazarus Chakwera invited his three living predecessors for a meeting. Two of them – Bakili Muluzi and Joyce Banda – showed up and were made “Goodwill Ambassadors of Tropical Cyclone Freddy”, national media reported.
Muluzi’s son Atupele told Climate Home that his father and Banda tried to access finance “to support the very real costs to the country for housing, social infrastructure, agriculture and industry as we try to rebuild in a resilient manner”.
“Of course, the global economy and international politics means that this is a challenging task in the midst of the chaos, conflict and climate impact everywhere in the world,” he added.
To meet this challenge, Bakili Muluzi turned to Mmobuosi, a Nigerian businessman and founder of mobile banking company Tingo Group, who was then in the news for trying to take over English football club Sheffield United.
Controversial Nigerian tech entrepreneur Dozy Mmobuosi recently visited the country to participate in the launch of a Cyclone Freddy relief project in Phalombe, an event supported by former Presidents Bakili Muluzi and Joyce Banda. pic.twitter.com/w1WlzANAKM
— Platform for Investigative Journalism – Malawi (@PlatformMalawi) June 15, 2023
On June 6, Mmobuosi, Muluzi and Banda travelled to Mchenga to launch construction work on new houses, posing with a foundation stone bearing their names. On Facebook, Banda said the houses “will be made possible because of a generous contribution” from Mmobuosi, who she called “a distinguished son of Africa” and “good friend” of Muluzi.
The next day, according to the Platform for Investigative Journalism, Mmobuosi met with Muluzi and President Chakwera at the president’s home. The Nigerian was unusually quickly granted a diplomatic passport, usually reserved for top Malawian politicians and their spouses.
“Exceptionally obvious scam”
But on the same day Mmobusi was in Mchenga, Hindenburg Research, which specialises in “forensic financial research”, accused his Tingo Group – which says it provides mobile banking to farmers – of being “an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials”.
Hindenburg was short-selling Tingo Group shares, so it stood to profit if the share price of the firm – listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the US – went down.
Hindenburg accused Mmobuosi of inventing much of his backstory, of settling out of court with Nigerian authorities over alleged bad cheques in 2017, of photo-shopping Tingo logos onto planes to claim the company had an airline, and generally exaggerating the company’s assets.
While Muluzi stood by him, in December 2023 the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sided with Hindenburg. They accused Mmobuosi of a “staggering” fraud against Tingo’s investors.
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The SEC’s 72-page complaint included images of what it said was a real and an edited Tingo bank statement. The edited one had several zeros added to the balance.
US authorities charged Mmobuosi with security fraud and froze his assets. His whereabouts are reportedly unknown. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
On October 6 – after Hindenburg’s complaint but before the SEC’s – Muluzi and Mmobuosi went back to Mchenga village in Malawi to hand over the first batch of 17 houses.
Muluzi thanked Mmobuosi for the funding and said he had “committed to buy beds, mattresses and furniture for the households and also to bring solar electricity to the area”. In December, another 28 houses were handed over.
@MalawiRedCross has today handed over 45 houses to beneficiaries of T/A Phweremwe in Phalombe, that have been constructed with funding from The Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation through Goodwill Ambassador on TC Freddy Former President Dr Bakili Muluzi. pic.twitter.com/hVhOYdScjS
— Malawi Red Cross Society (@MalawiRedCross) December 19, 2023
Cracks and missing crockery
But five months on, when Climate Home visited the village, residents complained the homes were too few, dangerous and small, adding they had not yet received the promised furniture or solar power.
Jeremia said her father was given one of the houses but she sleeps in it instead. “He and my mother and my other siblings are living in a rented house. They cannot stay in a house that is threatening their lives. After all, it’s also a very small house to accommodate all of us,” she said.
Mweyeli, the chair of the village civil protection committee, said most new homes are “showing cracks – a sign that these houses are of sub-standard”. He said the first 17 homes were built with 45 bags of cement, but the later 28 were built with just 28 bags, making them weak and liable to fall down.
He demonstrated how the floors were made of sand covered by plastic with a “thin layer of cement which is now showing cracks all over”.
Simon Mweyeli shows cracks in the floor of one of the houses, which he said were sand covered by plastic and a thin cement layer
Charles Macheso, who climbed a mango tree to save himself from the cyclone but lost all his possessions, said village coordinators told the Malawi Red Cross that more cement was needed. But, he said, the Red Cross officers “were so defensive”. Mweyeli said he called the Red Cross to report the cracks and the aid organisation came to take pictures.
Charles Macheso in Mchenga village on May 8, 2024 (Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe)
Asked about these houses, the Malawi Red Cross’s communications specialist in the capital Lilongwe, Felix Washon, initially told Climate Home to go see them, and then hung up the phone without answering further questions.
“Not aware”
After a two-day journey from Lilongwe to the village, Climate Home contacted Washon again and was told by email that “we are not aware of any report about cracking of houses in Phalombe [the district that covers Mchenga]”.
Washon said the Red Cross had a contract to build the homes with Muluzi rather than Mmobuosi. “We never received any money from Dozy [Mmobuosi] – direct from Dozy,” he said by phone. “Malawi Red Cross Society has no other links or contracts with Dozy,” he added.
Climate Home News emailed the contact address listed on the Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation’s website, but the email bounced.
Mmobuosi told Arise News in February that he was “taken aback” and “shocked” by the SEC’s allegations about Tingo Group. He said he had not run Tingo directly for seven years, adding that his lawyers were “on top of” responding to the SEC charges and that Tingo was conducting its own internal investigation. Mmobuosi is not currently listed as a member of the company’s board of directors.
In Mchenga, village headman Nangazi told Climate Home that 131 families are still without a home and called on national organisations like the Catholic Development Commission – that has provided iron sheets – to help build more accommodation.
Ida Mayilosi, 75, is one of those who missed out. “I wished I had also been assisted,” she said. “This house I am living in was built by some relatives but it took time.”
Ida Mayilosi, whose house was destroyed by Cyclone Freddy, sits in Mchenga village, May 8, 2024 (Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe)
Mattias Söderberg, climate lead for Danish charity DanChurchAid, which is currently building homes in Nepal after landslides there, said support for communities to rebuild after extreme weather that causes loss and damage “should be done so that they are more secure and robust to face the next climate-related disaster”. “Investments which are not adapted risk being lost,” he added.
Singh – who fought to solve similar problems in India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands following the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2006 – said he had seen “firsthand how involving communities not only places them in the driving seat but also ensures accountability”.
(Reporting from Raphael Mweninguwe in Mchenga and Joe Lo in London; editing by Sebastian Rodriguez and Megan Rowling)
The post In Malawi, dubious cyclone aid highlights need for loss and damage fund appeared first on Climate Home News.
In Malawi, dubious cyclone aid highlights need for loss and damage fund
Claver Gatete is Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Jason Veysey is Energy Modeling Program Director and Senior Scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute. Lisa Sachs is Director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment at Columbia University.
The case for global energy transition has rarely been clearer. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year exposed the cost of unplanned, fossil-dependent systems, while the falling cost of renewables, the rising penetration of electric vehicles, and the growing value of demand flexibility have made the direction of travel obvious. The benefits of a clean, secure, integrated system are no longer in dispute. What remains unclear is how to build it.
Countries around the world have called for faster renewable energy deployment and alternative energy arrangements. A secure, affordable, resilient, decarbonised system requires specific investments in specific places in a specific sequence, optimised across sectors and borders. But very few governments have the analytical foundation to translate those imperatives into investment.
The two instruments that are supposed to determine investment priorities for decarbonisation – Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and country platforms – cannot answer the most basic question facing any country undertaking an energy transition: what should the energy system look like?
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To close this gap, every country needs a bankable, economy-wide optimisation model for its energy system. A model is not a plan, but it can help answer the critical question of what the future energy system should look like. It shows how optimal scenarios vary as assumptions and policies are adjusted, calculates investment requirements and sequencing, and quantifies how system costs are affected by assumptions, policies, and exogenous variables like trade policy and financing terms.
Tool for efficient investment
Optimisation is a simplified way of simulating an energy system, but it can be an extremely powerful tool for moving energy planning from reactive (how do we manage the disparate actions in the energy system?) to intentional (what energy system underpins our national objectives?). A model can show how optimal scenarios vary as assumptions and policies are adjusted, and how investment requirements are quantified and sequenced.
Optimisation models can treat the energy system and the sectors it serves as an integrated whole, optimising across sectors and projects in ways that can be mutually reinforcing. If considered independently, growth in industrial demand, transport electrification, and digital infrastructure can add stress to the energy system. But an optimised plan can arrange these and other changes in an efficient, synergistic way.
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New load can be added where low-cost power is available; industrial customers can ensure the viability of investments in energy supply; electric vehicle charging policy can smooth load curves and reduce costs for all consumers.
Additionally, optimisation modeling can also change the financeability of investments. Taken alone, each project faces uncertainty about the rest of the system, which raises the cost of capital and causes projects to stall or unwind after contracts are signed. A coherent, optimised plan makes visible the coordination that private capital would otherwise have to bet on: identified offtake, sequenced and committed transmission, contracted power supply, and so on.
What COP31 and COP32 should do
The upcoming COPs in Turkey and Ethiopia can shift the center of gravity of international climate cooperation from fragmented commitments to planning. Three moves are urgently needed.
First, optimised, economy-wide, long-term energy system planning must be the foundation on which any meaningful NDC, country platform, or finance commitment rests. NDCs are typically drafted by environment or single-line ministries, with limited cross-sectoral input from ministries of energy, finance, and planning. They contain targets, derived from sectoral strategies or national commitments, not from an analytically grounded picture of what the energy system should look like and what investments would make it work. Country platforms are generally a portfolio of investments assembled from existing project pipelines, rather than derived from a system-level analysis of what an optimised, decarbonised energy system would require.
Second, recognise regions as a key planning unit. Modern integrated energy systems are inherently regional. Renewable endowments are unevenly distributed; balancing variable supply across borders lowers aggregate cost, reduces redundant backup capacity, and unlocks economies of scale no individual nation can achieve. Many energy investments in Southeast Asia, East Africa, Southern Africa and Central Asia may only be financeable in a regional context. Assessing domestic infrastructure without regional optimisation perpetuates the perception that decarbonisation is more expensive than it is.
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Third, finance the planning capacity. A coordinated commitment by multilateral development banks, bilateral donors, and philanthropic partners to help every region and its constituent countries develop and maintain their own modelling capability, with open-source tools and regional analytical hubs, would close the most consequential gap in the current architecture. The cost is small relative to current spending on country platforms, failed project preparation, and misallocated infrastructure investment.
This includes supporting regional institutions such as the ASEAN Centre for Energy, the African Energy Commission, regional power pools, and the Latin American and Caribbean Energy Organization to determine what optimised regional systems require. Country-by-country pledging, repeated at every COP, will not deliver what meaningfully integrated systems can.
The 2026 energy crisis made the cost of unplanned, fossil-dependent systems newly visible. That window of clarity will close. The international community should seize the moment to build the planning foundation that has been missing for thirty years, rather than commissioning another round of NDCs or pledges, striving for outcomes neither was designed to deliver.
The post Every country needs a model to help optimise its energy transition appeared first on Climate Home News.
Every country needs a model to help optimise its energy transition
The world is currently experiencing what is expected to become the strongest El Niño on record – dubbed a “super El Niño” by many.
El Niño is the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere.
This temporarily raises global temperatures and reshapes rainfall and extreme weather around the world – impacting the lives of billions of people.
The current El Niño event began in June and is expected to last into 2027.
El Niño is part of a wider climate pattern called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.
The ENSO cycle also has a cool phase, known as La Niña, as well as a “neutral” phase. El Niño and La Niña events typically last between nine and 12 months, but can go on longer.
Below, Carbon Brief explains how the ENSO cycle works, its impacts on extreme weather and global temperatures and why this El Niño event is projected to be the most intense since records began.
The post Explainer: How the ‘super El Niño’ will reshape the world’s weather appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/el-nino-explainer/index.html
The second-largest reservoir in the US reached a record-low water height on Saturday – just days after the country’s largest reservoir broke its own record.
Both Lake Mead and Lake Powell are located on the Colorado River.
They provide water for populations across seven US states in the south-western US, with around 40 million people getting some or all of their municipal water from the Colorado River.
The river also provides water for around 5.5m acres (22,258 square kilometres) of farmland across Colorado, Arizona, California and the other states in the river basin.
Experts tell Carbon Brief that climate change, population growth and over-consumption are all contributing to the current record-low levels of the reservoirs.
Record lows
At full capacity, Lakes Mead and Powell can hold a combined 68 cubic kilometres of water – enough to supply all household consumption in the contiguous US for nearly 1.5 years. However, the water level in both reservoirs has been declining for decades.
The chart below shows the water level of Lake Mead, in metres above mean sea level. The reservoir, which began to fill in 1935 following the construction of the Hoover Dam, has a “full pool” maximum capacity of 347.60 metres. The water level in Lake Mead reached a record low of 317.11 metres on 7 August.
The following chart shows the water level of Lake Powell, in metres above mean sea level. Lake Powell’s full-pool level is 1,127.76 metres.
While the reservoir reached its maximum capacity several times in the 1980s, it has not done so since. On 15 August, the water level in Lake Powell was recorded at a new record-low of 1,072.87 metres.
Both reservoirs have continued to decline in the days since breaking their respective records. The downward trend will largely continue in both lakes until next spring, when the snowpack in the mountains of the Upper Colorado River Basin begins to melt, says Dr Jack Schmidt, a senior research scientist at Utah State University’s Center for Colorado River Studies. He tells Carbon Brief:
“The big dilemma of the moment is that we’re only in the middle of August, and we have no assurance of what the coming winter will be. The only thing we can be sure of is that we will be depleting overall total basin reservoir storage from now until, roughly, early April.”
Compounding factors
The record lows across the two reservoirs are the result of several compounding factors, experts tell Carbon Brief.
Since the turn of the 20th century, the amount of water flowing along the Upper Colorado River has declined by about 20%. Research suggests that half of this decline can be attributed to human-induced climate change.
Most of the river’s streamflow comes from the snowpack of the Upper Colorado River Basin, which stretches across five western US states but is primarily located in Colorado and Utah.
This region has been gripped by a historic “megadrought” for more than a quarter of a century. Nearly half of the megadrought’s intensity over 2000-18 is attributable to climate change, according to a 2020 study.
At the same time, the increasing population in the US south-west has put added pressure on the Colorado River’s water supply. The number of people obtaining some or all of their water from the Colorado system has grown by 15 million (around 60%) since 1992.
Schmidt tells Carbon Brief:
“There’s an ultimate cause of the present water crisis, and there’s a proximate cause. The ultimate cause is a warming climate, a warming planet and a pretty clear correlation between warming conditions and decreased runoff in the Colorado River Basin.
“The proximate cause is that in this messy democratic republic of ours, big policy decisions that match the variability of the climate occur painfully slowly – with intense political negotiations – and only incrementally.”
On 31 July, the US Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water resources in the western US, released an environmental impact statement on its proposed post-2026 strategy for managing Lakes Powell and Mead. The strategy itself has not been released yet.
Schmidt notes that the statement does appear to give the Bureau flexibility to “respond to crisis” by reducing the delivery of water to several states. However, he adds:
“They acknowledge it won’t work if we just stay critically dry, and of course every climate model for the 21st century, especially with a continually warming planet, says that that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
The post Analysis: The two largest reservoirs in the US have hit record-low levels appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: The two largest reservoirs in the US have hit record-low levels
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