Addis Ababa — Scientists from around the world comprising the lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III have commenced their fourth meeting that takes place from1-5 June in Addis Ababa. The session opened with reminders of the magnitude of the challenge of climate change, particularly in Africa and a call to do more on resilient measures in the face of climate related disasters.
In his remarks Mr. Carlos Lopes, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), said that while some of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa, threats to development, as a result of climate change and other challenges, "point to the need for concerted action to sustain current growth trends in Africa."
He highlighted that between 1997 and 2007, Ethiopia lost an average $1.1 billion to drought every year and in the Sahel, farmers and livestock herders have witnessed a 25% decrease in rainfall in the past 30 years. The impacts of climate variability and change, said Lopes, take their toll on economic development and socio-ecological resilience.
He underscored the need to make Africa more resilient to climate related disasters as it is the most vulnerable to climate change and variability. In addition, the region experiences frequent extreme weather and increasingly unpredictable climate.
"Potential impacts arising from climate change may further impair the ability of vulnerable communities to fully utilise natural resources such as water and food," he added; and stressed that agricultural systems are particularly vulnerable and responsive to climate change and that climate shocks can have devastating impacts on the livelihood structure of rural and urban populations.
"The challenge is not just in forestalling current climate impacts and the way these impacts are distributed across scale and social groups, it is to implement short, medium, and long term comprehensive risk management strategies and to scale these out in ways that will increase the buffer potential of vulnerable groups and countries," said Lopes.
The Executive Secretary called for good climate forecasts and surveillance systems, as they can help African populations manage and translate vulnerabilities into opportunities in critical climate sensitive sectors.
Weighing in on an ongoing global "adaptation and mitigation" debate, Mr. Lopes said that while Africa's focus of choice has been on adaptation, as spelt out in the African Common Position, it does not mean that mitigation is not important for Africa.
"Many African countries are actively engaged in finding ways to address climate change in ways that do not compromise development and growth," he said.
He also noted that one argument in the debate is that land use mitigation options will lead to cheaper results than traditional mitigation technologies in the energy and industrial sectors (except energy efficiency).
"Others hold the view that these options constitute no regrets solutions with co-benefits, such as reduced air and water pollution, water conservation, and many others," he said.
Africa's per capita emissions on average are less than one-sixth those of the industrialized countries, according to Lopes. Recent scientific evidence points to the likelihood that greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries, could surpass those from developed countries within the first half of this century. However, these statistics are drawn from all developing countries, including Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Turkey with South Africa as the only African country included in this analysis.
Meanwhile Mr. Lopes applauded the efforts of the IPCC to encourage African scientists to engage in the peer-review process and give their research the credibility it needs to convince decision makers that robust scientific findings support the solutions offered. He nevertheless noted that the peer review process is still associated with a sense of exclusivity and urged IPCC to make more efforts to widen the discursive space that will enable African scientists "to make visible, important research outcomes that are aligned to IPCC standards to scientific rigour and excellence and to the needs of Africa's decision and policy makers."
