It is that time of the year when climate change brings the world together. On September 23rd, world leaders will gather in New York, and in December the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place in Lima, Peru.

In both summits, policy makers, political leaders, the business community, NGOs and civil society will meet to discuss challenges, opportunities and best ways to cope with climate change.

The New York summit is convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, aimed at catalyzing and galvanizing climate actions and decisions.

Of the sectors that are experiencing the adverse effects of climate change, agriculture is doubly affected due to its sensitivity to various climate aspects.

In the past few years, millions of small scale farmers with limited resources available to adapt have felt the heat in different parts of the world.Within East Africa alone, there have been severe droughts in The, erratic weather patterns and outbreaks of crop diseases in Kenya, and floods in Tanzania, just to mention a few.

A farmer tills his land so as to plant drought resistant crops. Photo: Elijah Mumo

This year has not been an exemption in Kenya, as far as these adverse events are concerned. A severe shortage of rain hit Kenya between the months of March and June. During this period, farmers normally expect rain so they can plant maize and a variety of other crops.

Further worsening the situation, maize lethal necrosis has in recent years struck crops in normally high-yielding regions. The disease causes maize plants to wilt and die during their flowering stage.

According to Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), small scale farmers produce about half of food for the Sub-Sahara region. Small holders who own 2 hectares of land or less are the least likely to be resilient to these shocks.

The alliance published the “2014 African Agriculture Status Report” on September 3, in which it argues that these small holder farmers run the risk of experiencing the effects of climate change in severe ways, particularly because about 90% of them rely almost entirely on rain fed agriculture.

The report underscores the importance of addressing climate change to increase African agricultural productivity, improve food security and enhance the resilience of farmers to climate change. The report could not have come at a better time. With the unfolding climate trends, the need for innovative agricultural practices to adapt to the changing climate has never been more urgent.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Limahave come to an end. Due to last minute haggling, the climate conference ran until Sunday morning, well after the official deadline on Friday. In the end, 190 countries agreed on the next steps needed for tackling climate change – what needs to be done now, and what information should be included in pledges by countries for COP 21 in Paris in December 2015, when countries are expected to submit commitments to reduce carbon emissions, and much more.

“Governments leave Lima on a fresh wave of positivity towards Paris with a range of key decisions agreed and action-agendas launched, including on how to better scale up and finance adaptation, alongside actions on forests and education,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework on Climate Change. View more about the final outcomes on the UNFCCC website.

The Conference of Parties got off to a good start, thanks to the building momentum around the world calling for action on climate change. Before the Climate Summit in New York in September, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in 166 countries, calling for immediate action. At the UN Climate Summit businesses joined national and regional governments supporting a price on carbon.

In addition, the European Union reached agreements and, on November 12, the United States and China announced an ambitious cooperation plan for Paris 2015 and actions on climate change after 2020.  This year has also played an essential role in preparing the “field” for solution-oriented agreements that will help fulfill the climate agenda in 2015 leading up to COP 21 in Paris in December.

In Lima, Connect4Climate supported several high-level sessions at COP 20, in particular the Global Landscapes Forum, organized by CIFOR, the Sustainable Innovation Forum, and events hosted by Connect4Climate partners such as TerrAfrica’s panel discussions, UNFCCC youth sessions and the Italian Ministry of the Environment’s high-profile events.

Once again, another Conference of Parties is here, and once again, it is time to talk, talk and talk. Though the COP 17 is not the first COP held in an African soil (COP 12 was held Kenya in 2006), but this one by and large is the much talk-about COP in Africa, hence dubbed as the Africans COP. But the questions which remain are what make COP 17 really an African COP? What is unique about it?  Is it only because it is held in Africa and that’s it!! Or is organising the COP in Africa really means the outcome of the negotiation will favour Africa’s agenda? Can South Africa, the incoming president really steer the negotiation to make it swing in favour of Africa? 

Will the outcome of the discussion going to be as usual, a simple COP decision without any binding targets or this time round would it be a fair ambitious and a legally binding one?  Is this year’s COP going to be different from that of 2009, where few powerful countries meet in a green room, put up negotiating text, tailored to suite their selfish national interest then ask the world to accept what they decided?  Or is COP 17 going to be a COP, where leaders make franks talks, having the threat of climate change at the back of their minds and then make a COP where parties big or small unclenched their fists for national interest to a global climate treaty that is needed to salvage the planet and the future generation?

Well, these are questions that needs urgent and decisive answers yet many a time there is none. So the world once again sit and wait, and as usual hoping for the best but expecting the worst. The COP 17 ends on the 9th December 2011 and then we shall know what our leaders have put on the table for us.

While we are waiting, fingers-a-crossed, we want to reflect on what we think should constitute a successful COP or otherwise, in the eyes of an African youth. First, we want to join the African group stand at the negotiation and want to say to them, louder and clear that we are behind you. As young people, representing the future, the generation that will inherit whatever decision reach today, and living in Africa, the continent that is most vulnerable and less capacities to adapt, we are equally perturb by the slow pace to act by those countries that are able, and in fact responsible for current predicament of the changing climate.

We are now tired of the hide-and-seek and business as usual of talks that lead us nowhere. The COP is such an expensive under-taking that we can longer accept the lack progress to reach a definitive agreement for global emission reduction. So, it’s time to act.

In a recent interview of Tosi Mpanu, the chief Negotiator of the African group under the UNFCCC with leaderhiponline, he said that Africa has high respect for the Kyoto protocol, and will not comprise with the life of the KP, the only legally binding instrument that requires those countries most responsible for causing climate change to reduce pollution. We welcome this tough stand and are happy that our leaders think this way.

Though we has no doubt that with a united African front this is achievable, however, we are worried that annex 1 countries will use their divide-and-rule  tactic which they are very good at, to get an easy way out.  We hope that the respective African countries will not be lured again to comprise their concerted efforts for big promises that are often not fulfilled. What we want to see now is tangible commitments that is legally binding and support climate financing needed to curb the climate crises. Funding for climate change based on bilateral agreement cannot just work for Africa and should not be accepted.

We therefore join Mr.Tosi and the general African group to ask for tangible outcome from Durban that is based on science that is fair and that honours the promises all countries have made to each other in the UN Climate Convention and its Kyoto Protocol. Unlike the mainly perceive death of Kyoto protocol in Durban we expect nothing less extension of the KP to another commitment period, after the current commitment expires in 2012.

This agreement need to be reach in Durban in order to avoid gap. Parties need to agree to a level of co-operative global efforts that cut emission to a safe level for Africa and other developing nations. And hence we want implore on all parties to agree to global emission reductions well below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Also, we want to remind parties do all it require to close the “mitigation gap”, ensuring that the developed countries take on the lead for fair and appropriate contributions to the global emission reduction efforts, based on historical responsibility and ability.

We want the “finance gap” to be close ensuring that the developed countries meet their commitments to enable the adaptation and mitigation efforts in developing countries that is clean and not following the annex 1 countries development pathway. In addition we want to see, capacity building, climate Education integrate into central focus on negotiation.

This may look to be a tall demand for many critics but we stand firm until these demands are met. We have Faith!!!

Ebrima S. Dem, youth climate activist. He is the climate change focal person for the Network of African Youth for Development ( NAYD),Climate change Education specialist and member African youth Initiatives on climate change (ayicc). He is currently the National Coordinator of Global Unification the Gambia. He can be reach at: climateinfo@nayd.org.

At C4C we want to make your voices heard by the key actors in climate change policy. With that goal in mind, we set out to have a presence at COP17 in Durban, through participating in or hosting five interactive events that would allow us to showcase your messages on climate change issues and actions. The variety in scope of C4C’s events in Durban helped to amplify the voices of our community amongst both current and potential partner organizations as well as youth delegates who were active at the conference. Having events both in and outside of the security perimeter meant that audiences for the C4C events included both accredited delegation members as well as press, NGOs, academics, private sector, and concerned individuals. You can find more information on each of our events at COP17 below. 

C4C delegates unfurling a banner in the Africa Pavilion at COP17.

On November 28th, 2011, the New York Times reported from Washington that with intensifying climate disasters and global economic turmoil as the backdrop, delegates from 194 nations will gather in Durban, South Africa, today, Monday 28th of November. The delegates will try to advance, if only incrementally, the world’s response to dangerous climate change. To those who have followed the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change over their nearly 20-year history, the conflicts and controversies to be taken up in Durban are familiar: the differing obligations of industrialized and developing nations, the question of who will pay to help poor nations adapt, the urgency of protecting tropical forests, and the need to rapidly develop and deploy clean energy technology.

However, many of the sitting members of the United States Congress doubt the existence of human influence on the climate and ridicule international efforts to deal with it. The negotiating process itself is under fire from other quarters, including the poorest nations who believe their needs are being neglected in the fight among the major economic powers. But scientists warn that these arguments serve only to delay actions that must be taken to reduce climate-altering emissions and to improve vulnerable nations’ ability to respond to the changes they say are surely coming.

Rajendra K. Pachauri, director of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global body of scientists and statisticians that provides the technical underpinning of the United Nations talks, noted that the group had recently released a detailed assessment of the increasing frequency of extreme climate events like droughts, floods and cyclones. They highlighted the necessity of moving quickly to take steps to reduce emissions and adapt to the inevitable damage. The Durban meeting is formally known as COP17, for the 17th conference of the parties to the United Nations convention on climate change.

Negotiators entered the United Nations climate talks at Copenhagen two years ago with grand ambitions but left empty-handed. Now they are lowering their expectations and hoping to keep the process alive through modest steps. At Durban, the negotiators will broach the politically-weighted question of whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that requires most wealthy nations to trim their emissions while providing economic and technological assistance for developing countries to pursue a cleaner energy path. Also still on the agenda are the structure of, and the sources of financing for, a climate adaptation and technology fund that is supposed to reach $100 billion a year by 2020. One of the issues that is most contentious and least likely to be resolved involves the future of the Kyoto Protocol, which requires the major industrialized nations to meet targets on emissions reduction but imposes no mandates on developing countries, such as emerging economic powers and sources of global greenhouse gas emissions like China, India, Brazil and South Africa. The United States is not a party to the protocol, having refused to ratify it because of its asymmetrical obligations. But the European Union, the major developing countries, and most African and Pacific island nations would like to see the Kyoto process extended as a prelude to a binding international agreement after 2020 to reduce emissions so as to keep the average global temperature from ever rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, or about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above its current level.

Member country officials, private and public sector executives and academics assembled in Lima last week to discuss global concerns and achievements: poverty eradication, climate change, renewable energy, international development, and more. Over three days at the Annunal meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund concerns, achievements and commitments were announced by world leaders just two months before COP21.

Finance ministers of the "Vulnerable Twenty" (V20) countries most at risk from climate change, representing close to 700 million people, said this week that an average of more than 50,000 deaths a year were attributable to climate change, with the number expected to rise exponentially by 2030.

On Oct. 9, following the Climate Ministerial meeting hosted by Peru and France, the Bank Group pledged to boost climate-related financing by as much as a third, to as high as $29 billion annually, with the support of the Bank Group’s member countries.

"The World Bank Group stands ready to scale up its support to meet increasing demand from countries," Jim Yong Kim, World Bank President, said in a press conference.

"If world leaders do not find a path to low-carbon growth that will keep global warming below an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, there is little hope of ending extreme poverty — and even more broadly, there is little hope of preserving the Earth as we know it for our children and grandchildren," said Kim and he urged countries to "show real ambition" at the climate change conference in Paris in December.

Connect4Climate followed the Annual Meetings closely, as they were filled with impressive and inspirational statements - see some highlighted quotes below:

From February 18 to 19, the twelve country project teams that form the World Bank/Global Environment Facility Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP) in support of the Great Green Wall are meeting at the Africa Union to share knowledge and best practices to enhance the resilience of African landscapes, lives, and livelihoods – especially the poorest who deeply depend on natural resources for environmental and food security.

SAWAP, a $1.1 billion flexible investment umbrella with 12 country-led investment operations, is the World Bank and GEF’s contribution to the African initiative to help transform the region into a stable, sustainable, resilient region. The program was developed in 2011 under the TerrAfrica partnership, and is reinforced by a regional hub project Building Resilience through Innovation, Communication and Knowledge Services (BRICKS). With the support of Connect4Climate BRICKS facilitates cooperation among the country projects and Great Green Wall partners on operational problems and solutions facing country project teams.

Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union, interviewed by Ethiopian media. She stresses importance of the Great Green Wall Initiative addressing the conference. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

“The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative is the first and only program conceived, engineered and created by the Heads of State of the African Union,” stated Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union. “This Wall is made up of the multimillion dollar programs like the SAWAP and BRICKS, multiple sectors and stakeholders, and ultimately the ‘ecological infrastructure’ that generates jobs, food and water security.”

The Second SAWAP Conference is being held in Ethiopia to celebrate the country's successful Sustainable Land Management Program that has so far restored 15 million hectares and transformed the lives of 30 million people in less than 10 years.

H.E. Ato Sileshi Getahun, State Minister of Agriculture of Ethiopia, emphasized benefits of Sustainable Land Management. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

“The poor are affected the most by climate change. Sustainable Land Management helps build resilience and reduce communities’ vulnerability, while also creating pathways out of poverty. … We look forward to greening out landscapes and empowering communities to build their resilience,” said H.E. Ato Sileshi Getahun, State Minister of Agriculture of Ethiopia.

Drylands in Sub-Saharan Africa account for 43% of land area, 50% of population – about 325 million people and 75% of agriculture land used for both crops and livestock production. Poverty is heavily concentrated in drylands with about 75% of Africa’s poor people and by 2030, 40 to 100 million more people could be sensitive to shocks.

“It is becoming more and more apparent that addressing the effects of climate change requires multidimensional interventions and the concerted efforts of all of us,” said Guang Zhe Chen, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia. “As World Bank President Jim Kim says, resilience is about development and development is about resilience. One cannot exist without the other. That is why the World Bank has been working with Governments and partners to help affected countries find lasting solutions to the challenges they face.”

 

Guang Zhe Chen, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia highlights importance of resilience to address climate change and poverty. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

BRICKS is being implemented by three regional centers: the Interstate Committee to Combat Drought in the Sahel (CILSS), the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) and West and Central Africa Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Each organization delivers specialty services to the SAWAP portfolio to enhance quality and promote regional integration.

“The merit of the BRICKS’s arrangement is that it allows us, African regional centers of excellence, to collaborate together in a united way, up our game and leverage our capacity,” said Dr. Djime Adoum, Executive Secretary of the CILSS. “OSS is in charge of geospatial applications and monitoring and evaluation, IUCN is a leader in biodiversity and communications strategies and CILSS is responsible for exchange of best practices and knowledge management. This allows us to offer effective services to the 12 country project teams and respond to their needs.”   

The Second SAWAP Conference brings together 12 country proejcts under BRICKS to enhance sustainable land management. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

This upcoming week, New York City will be the center of gravity for action against climate change. On September 23rd, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will host the United Nations Climate Summit, where world leaders from governments, civil society, the private sector and financial institutions are invited to catalyze ambitious action for a global climate agreement.

There is a massive, global demand for urgent solutions to address climate change. It affects people’s lives every day, in each and every country, with dramatic consequences. Climate change is no longer a local issue; it is everywhere, and it’s happening now.

That is why this week, besides the UN Climate Summit, New York will host the biggest climate demonstration in history, the People’s Climate March. Thousands of people from all parts of the United States will flood the streets of Manhattan to call for their leaders to take ambitious action to tackle climate change.

La situation du Conseil National Climat avec son Président du Comité de Gestion, également Président du Comité de Gestion de l'ANPN, Président de la commission d'attribution des bourses, Directeur général de l'Agence gabonaise d'études et d'observation spatiale, Conseiller spécial du Chef de l'Etat, Etienne MASSARD KABINDA MAKAGA interpelle le responsable de Brainforest que je suis du fait de notre engagement dans le processus FLEGT en tant que point focal société civile au Gabon et partie prenante du débat sur les changements climatiques en qualité de membre de ACCRA CAUCUS. 


Le Conseiller du Ministre de l'Economie, Jean Philippe NDONG BIYOGHO vient de remplacer le Conseiller économique du Premier Ministre, Nicolas ZEKPA au poste de Secrétaire permanant du Conseil National Climat. Considérant que ce sont des questions d'environnement, pourquoi le Ministère de l'Environnement ne joue pas ce rôle de Secrétaire permanent ? Où est passé la logique fermement défendu par Massard MAKAGA selon laquelle le Secrétariat permanent doit être assuré par un Représentant du Premier Ministre ? Alors que le Conseil est présidé par le Chef de l'Etat, pourquoi un Représentant du Premier Ministre n'assure pas la présidence du Comité de gestion pour autant que ça représente un cadre interministériel, et que le secrétariat permanant soit assuré par le Ministère en charge de l'Environnement ? 


S’il nous était demandé de revenir sur les conditions de création du Conseil Climat, nous dirions que l'idée part d'un comité interministériel changement climatique sous l'autorité du Premier Ministre présenté en son temps par le Ministre MABALA. Alors que le texte est en cours d'examen au Secrétariat Général du Gouvernement, le Conseiller du Président de la République nouvellement nommé fait irruption dans la salle et intimide les commissaires. Résultat, le Secrétariat Général du Gouvernement va surseoir à l'examen du texte. A la surprise générale, quelques mois plus tard, vers le mois d’avril 2010, le Ministre Mabala se verra présenter un décret à signer soumis par le Ministre Ministre Emile DOUMBA en charges des relations avec les Institutions Constitutionnelles. 


La question qui me brule les lèvres et celles des des observateurs de la question du climat au Gabon est la suivante : A-t-il fallu qu'un ancien Directeur général de l'environnement soit nommé à la Présidence de la République pour que cette Institution assume les questions de climat ? D'où sort soudainement l'expertise de Monsieur Massard en matière de climat alors qu'il n'est en contact de ces questions que lorsque l’ancien Vice Premier
Ministre, chargé de l’Environnement Madame Georgette KOKO le nomme Point Focal Climat ? Où en est-il avec sa spécialité de chercheur en biochimie?