Paris — Key findings on Africa's role in the global climate negotiations were greeted with cheers in the Africa Pavilion at the Paris climate talks yesterday as Mr. Carlos Lopes the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), released the document.
The event was one of a dozen activities held after the opening ceremony of the Africa Day events in the Africa Pavilion in Hall 3 Stand 19 in the Blue Zone of the UNFCCC COP 21 venue at Le Bourget.
The findings, packaged under the title, " Syntheses for Policy Makers", (SPM) are a precursor to the book " Africa's Journey in the Global Climate Negotiations" which will be published early next year by ECA's Africa Climate Policy Centre (ACPC).
The findings underscore the fact that the stakes for Africa in the UNFCCC negotiations are high and stress the need to remain as actively involved in them as they have been since climate change gained prominence on the global development agenda.
They draw attention to the need for Africa to maintain a more coherent regional voice on all key negotiation issues.
The findings recognize successes so far achieved as a result of institutional reforms and investments in negotiating capacities, although key players say more needs to be done. There is, for example significant need for further structural reforms that can help to strengthen the African Group's bargaining capacity.
The document underscores the fact that even within the African Group there have been calls to develop a coherent structural and operational framework, strengthen internal institutions, such as the AGN Bureau and the Strategy Group, and improve the process for updating Common Positions.
It also identifies the need to develop a systematic research agenda to support engagement in the negotiations, and a longer-term capacity building effort, building on existing activities; refine the relationship between CAHOSCC, AMCEN and the AGN, as well as other institutions such as the African Climate Policy Centre, the United Nations Environment Programme, the African Development Bank and the African Union.
The synthesis expresses the need to develop a coordinated strategy towards donors that can streamline the demands, avoid duplication, support improvements in the region's negotiating capacity and establish clear linkages between donor funding and the African Group's identified needs.
Launching the findings, Mr. Lopes said that "after over two decades of the UNFCCC negotiations", it had become imperative for Africa to take stock of the cumulative impacts of the global climate governance regime on Africa, and to document milestone decisions in the evolution of the UNFCCC".
"Far from falling prey to the victimhood narrative which has too often marked African messages on climate change, the forthcoming book strives to make intellectually rigorous contributions towards identifying pathways for more effective representation of African interests at climate change negotiations", he explains.
Mr. Lopes praised the courage of the editorial team led by Mr. Fatima Denton, the Director of the Special Initiatives Division at ECA and Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) for taking the bold decision to analyse Africa's positions, strategies, successes and failures in the global climate change negotiations .
He said that the findings "constitute a critical tool for ensuring that the region's needs and values are adequately reflected not just in the Paris Agreement but in all future climate accords."
Mr. Najmaldin El Hassan President of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), said that group has generally spoken with one voice at global climate negotiations, referring to the first African Common Position on Climate Change prepared in Nairobi in 2005 and 2006 by the AGN under the auspices of the African Ministers Conference on Environment (AMCEN), which enabled Africa to better defend its interests in COP 12, held in Nairobi.
He recalled that the third African common position on climate change prepared by the AGN under the auspices of the Conference of Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC) and AMCEN enabled the AGN to negotiate more consistently in difficult conditions at the COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009.
Mr. Najmaldin also reported that African countries have been very active in the search for a global governance framework on climate change.
"All African countries are signatories to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and have consistently participated in all annual conferences", he said.
Another speaker at the event, Dr Seth Osafo, former legal adviser to the AGN, also mentioned that Africa has made remarkable progress in the negotiations on the climate, but said a lot remains to be done, especially on major issues of development such as technology transfer, climate finance and capacity building - formidable challenges for Africa as they struggle to address the effects of climate change.
He said the time had come for the continent to define a clear strategy to facilitate the rapid transfer of clean technology from industrialized countries in the post 2020 agreement.
According to Mr. Fatima Denton, who moderated the launching ceremony, the forthcoming book will be one of the tools in the hands of African negotiators to provide credible arguments during these negotiations to protect food systems, ecosystems, and to ensure sustainable development.
Africa has consistently defended the need to include adaptation in the climate response strategy especially because of the low adaptive capacity of the continent, she explained, but also because of the continent's negligible carbon footprint compared to other regions of the world.
The book entitled Africa's Journey in the Global Climate Negotiations is an original idea of Mr. Fatima Denton who announced its publication for 2016.
