BONN, Germany (PAMACC News) - The Bonn climate talks entered high gear amid growing speculations about the present and future outcome of the Paris Agreement.
At a side event organised by civil society organisations on May 9th, participants expressed fears at declarations made by the Donald Trump administration, including no funding for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Green Climate Fund, Clean Technology Fund and the Strategic Climate Fund, calling for immediate review of the Clean Power Plan and reversing several of Barack Obama’s moratoriums on climate change.
They said such declarations will have a direct impact on addressing climate change globally and especially in the US.
“The slash of funding will have a direct impact on the implementation of climate action plans or Nationally Determined Contributions, much of which is conditional on the support of developed countries,” said Augustine Njamnshi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, PACJA during presentation of a study on Renewable Energy Initiative for Africa.
Africa’s dream to fight against poverty with the renewable energy initiative launched at COP21 Paris he said risk being frustrated by Donald Trumps administration, participants noted, calling on other developed countries to come to Africa’s rescue.
“Considering the developments in the US, developed countries must step forward and fill up or compensate for the US. Developed countries would need to mount pressure on developing ones to undertake necessary steps to address the issue,” he said.
It should be recalled that the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative is aimed towards the implementation of 10 GW of new and additional energy generation capacity by 2020 and at least 300 GW by 2030.
This ambitious efforts experts say could pave the way forward for a low carbon development pathway for all African countries.
Thus the need to fight against any obstacle towards Africa’s lofty energy provision plans.
Participants stressed that the principles of equity and differentiated responsibility are not open to negotiations or reinterpretations and that there should be no backtracking on climate commitments.
However, considering the nature of climate negotiations and the behaviour of developed countries reflected in their extreme reluctance to increase their climate ambitions or the support to developing countries, they expressed the need for the negotiations in Bonn to take a more open and transparent twist.
Negotiations, over the years, have also pointed out the fact that issues critical to developing countries, including means of support, adaptation, loss and damage and agriculture will suffer huge setback as the focus of the developed countries is more mitigation-centric.
Such concerns were reflected by developing countries represented by G-77 and China, LMDC, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Arab Group, Alliance of Small and Island States (AOSIS) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group in the opening plenary, calling on the negotiators to seek balance between different elements of the Paris Agreement
