According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Africa is among the most vulnerable continent to climate change. The vulnerability of Africa to climate change is driven by a range of factors that includes weak adaptive capacity, high dependence on ecosystem goods for livelihoods, and crude agricultural production system.
Yasmin Fouad, Egypt’s Minister of Environmental Affairs spoke at a COP25 climate meeting on behalf of the African Union. “We have, and will continue to engage and to seek landing grounds on the outstanding issues but we must flag our concern at the apparent reluctance by our interlocutors to engage on issues of priority to developing countries, as evidenced by the large number of such issues which have simply been pushed from session to session without any progress.”
COP 25 Speakers included Director-General of African Risk Capacity, UN ASG Mohamed Beavogui, he reckons that the climate disaster issues confronting the continent demand a predictable and unified response. “Africa needs to move towards market-based innovative financing models to achieve a strong, united, resilient and globally influential continent.
Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) said the ECA would support African countries to revise their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to attract private sector investments in clean energy. “The lack of concerted and meaningful global ambition and action to tackle climate change poses an existential threat to African populations,” Songwe said. The next step is to implement NDCs, which set out national targets under the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is the guiding force of current climate negotiations. The agreement appeals to all nations to control temperature increases at 2°C by the end of this century, while attempting to contain rises within 1.5°C.
Africa is responding positively to the challenge of climate change said Anthony Nyong, Director for Climate Change and Green growth at the African Development Bank.He believes that the missing link is the ability to brand efficiently and to act on the market signals. Chief Fortune Charumbira, Vice president of the Pan-African Parliament emphasized that robust climate legislation was key. “The world’s response to the challenge has shown that legislation is imperative to cement efforts employed by various stakeholders; from the Paris Agreement to nationally determined contributions,” he said.
