Preparations Underway for Africa Climate Week 2020 in Kampala

Bonn — Preparations are underway for Africa Climate Week 2020, which will be convened in Kampala, Uganda, 9-13 March 2020. The overview programme and further details have been published today.

The event in Kampala, at the Speke Conference Centre, will be the first Regional Climate Week to be hosted this year and will be followed by Climate Weeks in the Asia-Pacific (AP), Latin America and Caribbean (LAC), and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions.

The world is in a climate emergency. 2020 is a key year in which the international community must complete the unfinished tasks from 2019 at government level and mobilize far more action from non-State actors.

The climate emergency is a growing threat particularly to the most vulnerable, and a particular threat to the long-term health, safety and prosperity of people in Africa.

Africa Climate Week will bring together diverse actors from the public and private sectors and will be instrumental in building support for increased regional climate action, helping to put Africa on a path to low-carbon and resilience to the inevitable impacts of climate change.

Africa Climate Week is about managing climate risks and seizing transformation opportunities

The central objective of Africa Climate Week is to share ways for governments to implement the Paris Agreement in Africa, making use of all the planning tools and support available, and to serve as a platform for national governments and non-Party stakeholders to engage, build partnerships and explore solutions that can deliver climate action and support at scale.

In addition to discussions on how to regionally implement the Paris Agreement and related climate strategies and plans, a special focus will be on the sectors of energy security and access; food and water security; and urban infrastructure and mobility.

Africa Climate Week 2020 will be wholly inclusive and open to all stakeholders, as a 'go-to' hub to build partnerships and to showcase groundbreaking action in the region.

There are several ways organizations can get involved in and be part of the regional climate weeks:

Side events - Side events provide opportunities for organizations to conduct an hour-long session on topics aligned with the agenda.

Action Hub - The Action Hub provides a platform for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), intergovernmental organizations, governments, youth organizations and educational institutions from the region to showcase innovative climate action and ideas in 15-30 minutes on the Action Hub stage.

Exhibition Booth - Exhibition booths provide opportunities for organizations to showcase their work.

Knowledge Corner - The Knowledge Corner provides NGOs, youth organizations and educational institutions with a shared booth to exhibit their work.

Applications for opportunities during the Climate Weeks in the other regions (LAC, AP and MENA) will be made available closer to the dates of the designated events.

For more information about Africa Climate Week and the high-level overview programme, please see here. Read more about the focus areas of the meeting here.

In case of questions, please write a message to Climate-Week@unfccc.int

For media enquiries, please contact: JHay(at)unfccc.int

Partners of Africa Climate Week

The meeting is being hosted by the Republic of Uganda. Key partners are the UNFCCC secretariat, the World Bank Group, the UN Development Programme, UN Environment, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union and the African Development Bank.

About the UNFCCC

With 197 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement. The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep a global average temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of all agreements under the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.

UNFCCC Press Office: press(at)unfccc.int