ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - “The Paris Agreement is somewhat weak in terms of how African countries will attract the required investments to deal with the challenges of climate change…,”says James Murombedzi, Officer in Charge of the Africa Climate Policy Centre of the United Nations economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).While heralded as a landmark global deal on climate change, there remains a feeling of impotence from the Africa group on certain nuances of the Agreement and its implications to the continent’s development agenda.However, signing and ratifying the Agreement is not optional for Parties as it was universally agreed by the then 196 members to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—UNFCCC, in Paris last year.This therefore implies that whatever issues Africa has with the Agreement and its implications, would have to be dealt with at the negotiating table, and this is the point at which the Young African Lawyers (YAL) Programme becomes crucial.Established under the ClimDev-Africa Programme, YAL has the overarching goal of strengthening Africa’s negotiating position and ensuring Africa gets the best at the UNFCCC processes. “Signing and ratifying the Agreement is not optional for us as Africa,” says Natasha Banda, a young Legal Practitioner from Zambia, one of the mentees under the programme. Being part of the legal advisory team for the Zambian negotiators through the UNFCCC country Focal point person, Banda believes ratifying the Agreement is not negotiable and the starting point “because the nature of international Agreements is that you cannot have bargaining power from outside,” and is certain that Zambia, which is yet to ratify, would do so once all necessary processes are complete. In recognition of the importance of addressing the impacts of climate change comprehensively, and the unique roles and responsibilities of lawyers in the process, the Young African Lawyers (YAL) programme brings together young and motivated African lawyers in integrating climate change responses into Africa’s development agenda. According to Dr. Johnson Nkem, Senior Climate Adaptation Expert with the Africa Climate Policy Centre, and Coordinator of the programme, YAL is a crucial component for Africa’s climate governance framework, especially now that the world is moving towards a greener, cleaner future, as espoused in the Paris Agreement. “While providing essential legal support to the AGN, the YAL programme is an important foundation for developing a cadre of African lawyers who are fully engaged in wider climate change issues. Legal advice on low-carbon trading transactions, for example, or integrating climate change into Environmental Impact Assessments are going to be increasingly important as the world heads towards a greener, cleaner future. As Africa anchors itself firmly in this global transition, the YAL programme aims to nurture the legal skills that will be integral to this process,” Nkem explains.As well as the immediate benefits of providing legal support at the climate negotiations, YAL has the longer-term goal of building the expertise of young lawyers, to be applied in broader aspects of climate change policy and law. And Rachael Rwomushana, a Ugandan Lawyer, testifies to the…

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - World Food Day 2016 has the global message: “Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too.” This echoes weather-related disasters hitting vulnerable farmers, fishers and pastoralists in Africa. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, growing food in a sustainable way means adopting practices that produce more with less in the same area of land whilst using natural resources wisely. It also means reducing food losses before the final product or retail stage through a number of initiatives including better harvesting, storage, packing, transport, infrastructure, market mechanisms, as well as institutional and legal frameworks. Most agricultural systems south of the Sahara are climate dependent, with more than 95 percent of farmed land growing crops from rain-fed agriculture. The African countries are already suffering from food insecurity due to low productivity because of degraded soils, droughts, floods and a lack of effective water management, among other factors. But efforts are underway on the continent to encourage and upscale climate smart agriculture. Participants from the recently-ended 2nd Africa Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Alliance Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, visited two farms that are using climate smart agricultural techniques and are yielding positive results. Albert Waweru, a retiree from the police force, is an urban farmer from Kasalani sub-county in Nairobi, whose farm employs climate smart measures and sees him rewarded with a sustainable income from the proceeds of his 1.75 acre plot. Waweru practices zero-tillage mixed farming on his modest land upon which he has vegetable greenhouses and livestock. He has invested in a rain water harvesting system and has a number of storage tanks that have been installed underground in order to save on space. “For me to keep good animals I needed water 24hours so that my animals do not starve… I needed to think smarter. I decided to do water harvesting; any drop of rain that comes, I harvest,” he said. Waweru’s 50 cows produce an impressive 290 litres of milk per day which he sells to schools and hospitals. The milk sales have been very successful to the extent that he is now unable to meet all the demands. At the back of his plot, Waweru makes manure from his animals’ dung and bio-waste that is covered while being processed in order to reduce gas emissions. This too is a lucrative business as he is never short of customers for the manure. The other animals on his farm are goats and chickens which also add to his income. Waweru informed the visitors that he would like to embark on biogas generation that he also wishes to sell to his neighbours for their daily power needs. “The income sustains me and my family; nothing goes waste, whatever come I turn it into money,” said the retired police officer. Participants from the Africa CSA Alliance Forum also visited a State farm on the outskirts of Nairobi that hatches fingerlings for sale to fish farmers. The Samaki Tu farm, whose Swahili name…

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - The Secretary General of the Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance, an umbrella network that brings together over 1000 civil society groups that advocate for climate justice prays that Donald Trump, the American Presidential aspirant on a Republican ticket in the United States of America will lose the election.According to Mithika Mwenda, Donald Trump is definitely going to derail the progress made so far in the fight against climate change, given his belief that the phenomenon is just but a Chinese Hoax.“I believe in God, and I pray every day that this man gets defeated, so that all of us can forget about him and concentrate on the fight against climate change,” Mithika told a delegation of journalists and civil society organisations in Addis Ababa, ahead of the sixth Climate Change and Development Conference (CCDA-VI).Trump has come under heavy criticisms especially from his opponent Hillary Clinton, for his remarks on twitter that; "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." In one of the presidential debates, Trump further said that the issue of climate change is an issue that requires further probing, and that money used to fight the phenomenon should be channeled to other uses."There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of climate change. Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria,” said the republican nominee. Perhaps, he continued, “We should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels. We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous,” he added.Evidence based studies have shown that climatic conditions have been changing over the years as a result of excess emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (The greenhouse gases are compounds that are able to trap heat in the atmosphere, giving earth warmth that makes life thrive. But when they are over-emitted, they make the earth much warmer than naturally expected, leading to climate change).The USA is one of the heaviest emitters of these gases, which include carbon dioxide, which is mostly emitted due to industrialisation.“Science has proven that the climate is changing, and the most affected areas are found in Africa,” said Mithika. “Anyone who denies these scientific evidence based facts does not deserve any position of leadership in this world,” he added.So far, countries have been negotiating on roadmaps towards the fight against climate change through the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC). Following the 21st round of negotiations in Paris, countries including USA came up with an agreement that details what should be done in order…

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - The Africa Climate Policy Centre of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has urged African countries that are yet to ratify the Paris Agreement to consider revising their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).Speaking at a civil society workshop on the eve of the sixth Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA VI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ACPC Officer in Charge, James Murombedzi said an analysis of most INDCs has revealed a number of discrepancies which countries must revisit before they submit their instruments of ratification.“The unprecedented momentum for ratification of the Paris Agreement present an urgent opportunity for African countries to revise their INDCs with a view to addressing the noted discrepancies and strengthening their ambition levels where appropriate,” says Murombedzi.The Paris Agreement is set to enter into legal force on 4th November, 2016 after the 55% GHG threshold was reached in terms of ratification. Of the 81 Parties that have ratified the agreement so far, 15 are from Africa, representing just about 1% of global emissions.The call by the ACPC head comes in the realization that the basis of the Paris Agreement is the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) submitted by all parties in the lead up to COP 21 as their national contributions to limiting global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, once a party ratifies the Paris Agreement, its coming into force means that the Agreement and all its provisions - including NDCs - becomes legally binding to that Party. “The analysis by ACPC determined that Most African NDCs are vague in their mitigation and Adaptation ambitions,” says ACPC’s Solomon Nkem, adding “they have failed to provide cost estimates, sources of funding, pledging emission cuts even when they do not have National GHGs emission records/inventories, while others committed cuts that exceed their current level of emissions.” Nkem was however quick to point out that ACPC sympathises with African countries as most of them “outsourced the preparation of their INDCs.”In view of the above, ACPC wants to use the CCDA VI as a platform to clarify these issues and help African countries make informed decisions regarding the implications of implementing the Paris Agreement in its current form, hence the theme: The Paris Agreement on climate change: What next for Africa?Implementation of the Agreement has significant implications for Africa as the continent that will be most severely impacted by the adverse impacts of weather variability and climate change. The continent is already experiencing climate-induced impacts, such as frequent and prolonged droughts and floods, as well as environmental degradation that make livelihoods difficult for rural and urban communities. Increasing migration on the continent is both triggered and amplified by climate change. And this is a point that Mithika Mwenda, Secretary General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), does not want Africa to lose focus on. “We in Africa particularly, are concerned with the most important action—adaptation to climate change,” said Mwenda, pointing out that the continent should not lose focus of…