NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Institutional reform is a key intervention towards ensuring the resilience of African economies and the livelihoods of communities, says the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).
According to James Murombedzi, Officer-in-Charge of ACPC, communities have long practiced many adaptation strategies and devised many viable responses to changing conditions.
“However, there are limits to how well communities can continue to practice adaptive livelihoods in the context of a changing climate. They need the support of an enabling environment created by government-planned adaptation,” he observed.
He was addressing a forum on climate governance preceding the Seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA-VII) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Conference comes on the heels of the IPCC report on Global Warming of 1.5oC which says the world is heading towards catastrophe if immediate action is not taken to halt greenhouse gas emissions.
“We have adequate knowledge of the causes of global warming, and the science is conclusive. There is no room for climate deniers in this discourse,” said James Murombedzi. “However, the inaction that we have seen is not because there is insufficient knowledge or technology or finance. We have enough of these to be able to change the way in which we produce, distribute and consume goods and services”
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms what the impacts of climate change that African is already experiencing.
Mithika Mwenda of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) said the implementation of climate policies remains crucial.
“The successful implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), a set of actions each country has committed under Paris Agreement to combat climate change, will be determined by the policy and legal frameworks which will be laid down by individual countries,” he noted.
African economies and communities are generally dependent on natural resources. The use and management of these natural resources also tends to be characterized by institutional structures which are poor, making them vulnerable to climate extremes.
CCDA-VII will focus on mobilizing action towards the achievement of the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
The ACPC, through the ClimDev Africa initiative, is already exploring the climate governance prospects for Africa structural transformation towards achieving the aspirations of Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Climate change is cross cutting. It affects every aspect of life, and our ability to achieve the SDGs or indeed any of the aspirations of agenda 2063 is constrained by climate change. Because of its cross cutting nature, climate governance is complex. It requires the participation of multiple stakeholders, with sometimes conflicting interests” said James.
With the support of DfID, the ACPC is also implementing the Weather and Climate Information Services (WISER) which seeks to promote the production and use of climate information, and contributes to building the capacities of hydrological and meteorological authorities across the continent.
The ACPC has also developed a five year programme which seeks to support African countries in building resilient infrastructure and economies.
Climate finance is however a major constraint to climate action.
The ACPC posits that “if local governments access decentralized climate finance, they should be empowered to disburse these climate funds for investment in priorities chosen with communities for adapting to climate change”.
The International community has been reacting positively to the just released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calling for urgent actions to save the planet from worsening climate disasters.
Environment actors say the long-awaited special report on global warming of 1.5C is expected to bring urgency to the upcoming climate talks.
"We need urgent action and the report is timely enough" says Mithika Mwenda, SG of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, PACJA, co-organisers of the seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa October 10-12, 2018.
The IPCC report confirms that limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C would be significantly better than breaching the 2°C threshold, supporting calls for a definitive stop to fossil fuel use and a rapid transition to energy systems based on 100% renewable energy.
Reacting to the IPPC report, the secretariat of the UN Climate Change, UNFCCC welcomes the call that will unlock practical actions and contributions towards the Paris Agreement’s goals, noting that governments have set a deadline for themselves to finalise the agreement’s implementation guidelines at the annual UN Climate Change Conference this December in Katowice, Poland.
“These guidelines will build trust by ensuring transparency. They will enable each country to act and contribute, they will allow all of us to see what each country is doing, and they will allow us to have full clarity on the provision of support, especially climate finance now and in the long-term,” UNFCCC secretariat said in an October 8,2018 press release.
Officials of the World Meteorological Organisation have saluted the report calling on different governments and other actors to act fast.
“ There is need to act fast to save the world from worsening climate disasters,” says Petri Taalas of the World Meteorological Organisation.
The report calls on the need to stop fossil fuel extraction and redirect resources on renewable energy.
“The science in the IPCC report on 1.5°C speaks for itself. Staying under 1.5ºC is now a matter of political will. Burying our heads in the sand cannot be contemplated as an option any longer. The climate crisis is here and already impacting the most vulnerable and the least responsible for creating it. The only way to achieve it is to stop all fossil fuel extraction and redirect the massive resources currently spent on the fossil fuel economy towards the renewable energy transition”.
Apolos Nwafor of OXFAM international says, ” there is need to speed up finances to carry out actions that will benefit of our children, the farmers and many others impacted by the growing effects of climate change.”
Communities worldwide are already resisting fossil fuel development and calling for a deep transformation of our energy systems and economies. Some of these stories of resistance can be found in the newly released People’s Dossier on 1.5°C.
The Dossier puts faces and voices onto the facts and data provided by the IPCC special report. It contains the stories of 13 communities fighting on the frontlines of climate change: from young Pacific Islanders trying to stop the Adani mega-mine to fishermen communities in Africa battling against new coal plants; from the struggle to stop a gigantic gas pipeline among the olive groves of Southern Italy to the landowners and Native Americans putting solar panels on the route of the Keystone XL pipeline.
350.org also lauded the report indicating in a release that its activists will also launch a globally coordinated delivery of copies of the IPCC report, demanding that all institutions withdraw their support from the fossil fuel industry and stand up to them before it’s too late.
The IPCC report explores in detail the impacts of a world 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels and the feasibility of avoiding greater increases in temperature, while current national plans -if implemented - are only consistent with a world over 3°C warmer.
Keeping the world from warming over 1.5°C will prevent considerable disruption to all of the Earth’s systems and allow for some ecosystems to partially recover from climate change after 2100, knowing that 20% to 30% of emitted CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for a time ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand years.
The 1.5°C target is feasible, provided enough economic resources are invested early enough to dramatically accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels and the uptake of renewable energy and energy saving technologies across the board. Within the next decade or so, we will need to radically change the way we build our houses, move from one place to another and grow our food.
As development stakeholders meet in Kenya for the seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa, it is expected that the report is a clear call to drive Africa’s nationally determined contributions and define actionable agendas regarding them as proposed by Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) programme.
The International community has been reacting positively to the just released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calling for urgent actions to save the planet from worsening climate disasters.
Environment actors say the long-awaited special report on global warming of 1.5C is expected to bring urgency to the upcoming climate talks.
"We need urgent action and the report is timely enough" says Mithika Mwenda, SG of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, PACJA, co-organisers of the seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa October 10-12, 2018.
The IPCC report confirms that limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C would be significantly better than breaching the 2°C threshold, supporting calls for a definitive stop to fossil fuel use and a rapid transition to energy systems based on 100% renewable energy.
Reacting to the IPPC report, the secretariat of the UN Climate Change, UNFCCC welcomes the call that will unlock practical actions and contributions towards the Paris Agreement’s goals, noting that governments have set a deadline for themselves to finalise the agreement’s implementation guidelines at the annual UN Climate Change Conference this December in Katowice, Poland.
“These guidelines will build trust by ensuring transparency. They will enable each country to act and contribute, they will allow all of us to see what each country is doing, and they will allow us to have full clarity on the provision of support, especially climate finance now and in the long-term,” UNFCCC secretariat said in an October 8,2018 press release.
Officials of the World Meteorological Organisation have saluted the report calling on different governments and other actors to act fast.
“ There is need to act fast to save the world from worsening climate disasters,” says Petri Taalas of the World Meteorological Organisation.
The report calls on the need to stop fossil fuel extraction and redirect resources on renewable energy.
“The science in the IPCC report on 1.5°C speaks for itself. Staying under 1.5ºC is now a matter of political will. Burying our heads in the sand cannot be contemplated as an option any longer. The climate crisis is here and already impacting the most vulnerable and the least responsible for creating it. The only way to achieve it is to stop all fossil fuel extraction and redirect the massive resources currently spent on the fossil fuel economy towards the renewable energy transition”.
Apolos Nwafor of OXFAM international says, ” there is need to speed up finances to carry out actions that will benefit of our children, the farmers and many others impacted by the growing effects of climate change.”
Communities worldwide are already resisting fossil fuel development and calling for a deep transformation of our energy systems and economies. Some of these stories of resistance can be found in the newly released People’s Dossier on 1.5°C.
The Dossier puts faces and voices onto the facts and data provided by the IPCC special report. It contains the stories of 13 communities fighting on the frontlines of climate change: from young Pacific Islanders trying to stop the Adani mega-mine to fishermen communities in Africa battling against new coal plants; from the struggle to stop a gigantic gas pipeline among the olive groves of Southern Italy to the landowners and Native Americans putting solar panels on the route of the Keystone XL pipeline.
350.org also lauded the report indicating in a release that its activists will also launch a globally coordinated delivery of copies of the IPCC report, demanding that all institutions withdraw their support from the fossil fuel industry and stand up to them before it’s too late.
The IPCC report explores in detail the impacts of a world 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels and the feasibility of avoiding greater increases in temperature, while current national plans -if implemented - are only consistent with a world over 3°C warmer.
Keeping the world from warming over 1.5°C will prevent considerable disruption to all of the Earth’s systems and allow for some ecosystems to partially recover from climate change after 2100, knowing that 20% to 30% of emitted CO2 will remain in the atmosphere for a time ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand years.
The 1.5°C target is feasible, provided enough economic resources are invested early enough to dramatically accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels and the uptake of renewable energy and energy saving technologies across the board. Within the next decade or so, we will need to radically change the way we build our houses, move from one place to another and grow our food.
As development stakeholders meet in Kenya for the seventh Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa, it is expected that the report is a clear call to drive Africa’s nationally determined contributions and define actionable agendas regarding them as proposed by Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) programme.
ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Twenty-seven nations across Africa have now committed to restore 111 million hectares of degraded land as part of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and the Bonn Challenge – exceeding the 100-million-hectare AFR100 target.
In realizing these commitments, countries will spur climate resilience, economic growth and more.
AFR100 was launched in 2015 in response to the African Union (AU) mandate to bring 100 million hectares of land into restoration by 2030. The initiative is led by the African Union’s NEPAD Agency in partnership with 27 participating countries, 27 technical and 12 financial partners. Founding partners include NEPAD, the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), World Resources Institute (WRI), GIZ, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the World Bank.
During the 3rd Annual AFR100 Partners Meeting in Nairobi this August, member country representatives, as well as technical and financial partners supporting implementation, reaffirmed that the initiative is a powerful lever to bring forest landscape restoration to scale.
“It is a testament to the continuing political will to restore landscapes across Africa that the AFR100 partnership has exceeded its 100-million-hectare target in commitments. We must sustain this momentum and move from pledges to implementation. There are already many examples of restoration success underway in African communities from which we can collectively learn, to realize these commitments,” said Wanjira Mathai, Senior Advisor, WRI and Co-Chair, Global Restoration Council.
In the margins of the meeting, two countries pledged to restore a combined 19.6 million hectares of land towards the 100-million-hectare target: Burkina Faso (5 million hectares) and the Republic of Sudan (14.6 million hectares). These pledges follow commitments made by Togo (1.4 million hectares) and Tanzania (5.2 million hectares) in the weeks prior to the meeting.
“Sudan is delighted to be able to commit to restore 14.6 million hectares of degraded land as part of AFR100. Restoration in Sudan will support in the reduction of youth immigration and food security for the poorest communities, as well as help the country to respond to international commitments,” said Ali Hamid Osman, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for the Sudan Sustainable Natural Resources Management Project and Sudan’s AFR100 Focal Point.
“The fight against desertification and land degradation is a major challenge for Burkina Faso's sustainable development and economic vitality. Our 5-million-hectare commitment to the AFR100 Initiative will improve food security and create more robust livelihoods, both of which are conducive to resilient restoration and productive agro-ecosystems. In our context, special attention and effort should be given to sustainable employment and entrepreneurship for young people and women, to provide economic opportunities through the restoration of our lands and forests,” added Adama Doulkom, Coordinator of the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and the Sahel, Burkina Faso.
“Indeed, of all the Bonn Challenge’s regional platforms, AFR100 is the most successful, contributing over half of the current global commitment of 170 million hectares. Ideas can only take root if they are owned and while many have contributed to this momentum we must recognize the fundamental role that NEPAD has played in making this an African led and owned initiative, and particularly the inspiring work of Mamadou Diakhite and his team.” stated Stewart Maginnis, Global Director, Nature-based Solutions Group, IUCN.
Restoration is widely understood as a key pathway to meet climate change, desertification, biodiversity and sustainable development goals in Africa, and to secure vital food, water, and energy resources.
“In times of ever-increasing pressure on land, water, and biodiversity, the restoration of degraded forests and lands is more urgent than ever. Bringing back trees into the land offers multiple benefits for sustainable development, the fight against poverty and hunger, for conserving biodiversity and for adaptation to climate change. Restoration is spectacular in that every $1 invested there is the potential for $27-$35 in return. Seeing communities who restore their land reap a share of their restoration proceeds, is an honour,” said Mamadou Diakhite, Sustainable Land and Water Management (SLWM) Team Leader at the NEPAD Agency, home to the AFR100 Secretariat.
“It was a great success that the Global Landscapes Forum conference in Nairobi took place back-to-back with the third annual AFR100 partners meeting at the end of August there. We have sent a strong signal for the integration of reforestation, restoration and sustainable rural development. The broad concept of landscape restoration provides us with strong ideas in the fight against hunger and poverty through implementing the entire Agenda 2030 – and mainly SDG2 (zero hunger) and SDG15 (life on land),” said Bernhard Worm, Senior Policy Officer at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Participants of the recent AFR100 meeting also endorsed the motion to have the United Nations
General Assembly (UNGA) declare a UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, first proposed in March 2018 by El Salvador’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources – intended to increase the visibility of and resourcing for countries’ restoration efforts.
