ClimDev-Africa

24/03/2018

The Second African Climate Talks Concludes with Calls for Homegrown Solutions
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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 23 March 2018 - Africa should focus more on building internal solutions to its problems rather than depend on international partners to solve its challenges. This was the dominant message at the end of the two-day meeting on the Talanoa Dialogue: African Climate Talks II (ACT!-II) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Participants at the talks on the theme “Market policy versus market mechanisms in the implementation of the Paris Agreement”, called for African initiatives to address the continent’s climate problems. They advocated for holistic African approaches to help the region in its climate change mitigation, adaptation and in addressing it's exposure and vulnerability to constantly increasing climate impacts.

Mr James Murombedzi, Officer in Charge of Africa Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) underscored that Africa continues to have the least capacity for climate information services (CIS), a concern that the Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) programme is addressing. “WISER seeks to demonstrate the socio-economic benefits (SEB) of investing in CIS. Apart from investing in CIS, we should also build the capacity of decision makers to be able to analyse and integrate CIS in policy,” Murombedzi said. He added that WISER is also supporting development of climate research for development (CR4D) for CIS to be fully integrated in policy making.

Prof Laban Ogallo, University of Nairobi, urged for use of historical data which is available to solve climate problems.
“The future is now. Indigenous knowledge is vital and we should make use of it together with right technologies to predict the future,” he said. Dr Buruhani Nyenzi, a consultant from Tanzania called for meteorologists to be involved in the negotiations to provide good climate information. “Combine adaptation and CIS for good results and advocacy on how to apply this knowledge at the grassroots,” Nyenzi said. On his part, Dr Amos Makarau, formerly of Zimbabwe Meteorological Services called for integration of IKS in early warning systems in in-country networks to increase observation and fill gaps in spatial coverage. He stressed the need to regulate issuance of climate information to protect producers and users.

Youth representatives at the meeting advocated for their greater inclusion in decision making forums. “Expose the youth to challenges of policy making now so that they can know how better to find solutions rather than just be observers as the region suffers,” said Chinma George from Nigeria.
Barbara Nakangu from Makerere University, Uganda, urged the youth to join politics and be part of decision and policy making.

On the globe's continued warming, Dr Webster Whande of CDKN, South Africa said the continent should develop tools to assess its collective progress of achieving the 1.5 degrees centigrade. Dr Robert Mbeche of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya added that various agreements under UNFCCC and other agreements have not slowed down carbon emissions and temperatures are rising towards 3 degrees centigrade.

The more that 170 participants in attendance lastly recommended that engineers, climate resilience experts and disaster risk managers should work together to save the continent from losing money on infrastructure such as roads, bridges that are being washed away by floods yearly.

More: https://www.uneca.org/act-ii

14/03/2018

Pan-African Parliamentarians seek accountability by industrialised countries, whose activities have resulted in excess of greenhouse gases that are causing

https://www.uneca.org/stories/pan-african-parliamentarians-trained-climate-information-development-planning

Midrand, South Africa, 10 March 2018 – Legislators at the Pan African Parliament (PAP) are eager to seek accountability by industrialised countries, whose activities have resulted in excess emission of greenhouse gasses that are causing global warming, but the African civil society on climate chan...

28/02/2018

ACPC in collaboration with Addis Ababa University will convene the second round of the African Climate Talks (ACT) at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the 22-23rd March 2018. The event will be a follow-up to the inaugural ACT event which took place in September 2015 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The world’s governments reached the Paris Accord in 2015 at COP 21. The agreement commits to specific targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Paris Agreement has been hailed as a breakthrough moment in the trajectory of the UNFCCC framework, capping emissions not more than 2 degrees since the 19th century onset of the industrial revolution. While 2 degrees warming has been considered the upper limit of ‘safe’ warming, the Paris Accord further seeks, if possible, to aim for even lower warming target of 1.5 degrees. The 20C target is itself a political limit, with scientific debates still raging over its implications for the various regions (e.g. IPCC Special report. The main mechanism by which nations commit towards achieving the objectives of the Accord are the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)).

More info -

“One key outcome of the conference (COP 23) is the Talanoa Dialogue. Talanoa is a Fiji term for a conversation in which the people involved share ideas and resolve problems. As the sum total of the current climate targets under the Paris Agreement is not yet sufficient for limiting global warming ...

02/11/2017

The climate in Africa 2017 brief for policy makers. October 2017 - Preliminary statement based on January-September 2017 temperature data by ACMAD

17/08/2017

ACPC has posted a call for climate information services (CIS) innovations at http://www.climdev-africa.org/ccda7/call-innovation-proposals. Selected innovations will be presented on the sidelines of the 7th Climate Change and Development in Africa conference (CCDA-VII), which will be held on 11-13 October 2017 in Nairobi, Kenya. The deadline for submitting entries is the 28th August 2017.

Feel free to disseminate in your network.

11/05/2017

IPCC is currently calling for nominations for authors for two special reports on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate and Climate Change and Land.

The deadline is only a week away - 17 May 2017.

You can find details here + a video with interviews with experts from developing countries describing their experiences as IPCC authors:
http://ipcc.ch/news_and_events/videos.shtml

19/04/2017

Launch of CIS online learning module for policy makers

The online module is targeting policy makers at all levels, to provide increased awareness of the relevance of CIS in decision making.

02/04/2016

ClimDev-Africa Side Event at

After Paris: Implications for Green Growth in Africa

Two weeks of intense negotiations in December 2015 in Paris led 195 countries to an agreement to combat climate change and to implement actions and investment towards a low carbon, resilient and sustainable future.

To achieve the goal of limiting temperatures to 1.5 º Celsius, governments put forward their own targets for reducing emissions called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). However, these NDCs are voluntary commitments, have no legal binding and will not come into effect until 2020.

This high-level panel side event sought to explore the extent to which the Paris Agreement affects Africa’s development agenda; the opportunities for new investments away from fossil fuels such as coal; the mobilization of adequate resources to support green investments, and the possibilities of ratcheting up the emissions reduction ambition in order to keep global warming within safe limits particularly for Africa.

The event was attended by planners, researchers, civil society, private sector and policy makers.

Time 12h00-14h00, 2nd April 2016, Venue: ECA, Addis Ababa

04/03/2016

NEWS: Should Africa Sign the Paris Climate Agreement?
"The Paris Agreement is like a doughnut: some will look at it and see the ring others while others will see the hole." This was one of the views put forward in our recent seminar on whether or not Africa should ratify the Paris Agreement. Lively debate ensued as some panellist voiced their support for the new climate deal with others calling for Africa to have a clear strategy going forward - if not, the continent's interests could be compromised.
Read the round-up here:
http://www.climdev-africa.org/content/should-africa-sign-paris-climate-agreement

22/02/2016

Really interesting article on Mongabay.com on how the Nganyi forest communities in Western Kenya draws on observations from the forest to predict the climate - from budding, flowering or shedding of leaves to the croaking of frogs and the behaviors of local insects. Underlines the importance of combining climate science from new infrastructures and technologies with indigenous knowledge.
http://news.mongabay.com/2016/02/nganyi-the-tiny-forest-in-kenya-that-can-predict-the-weather/

Nganyi forest shrine provides forecasts as accurate as those predicted through scientific equipment, and has been a valuable resource to the Bunyore community for generations. But now, climate change is threatening the forest shrine, along with other forests in East Africa.

17/02/2016

It’s just 3 months since world leaders reached an agreement in Paris to commit billions of dollars towards curbing and adapting to climate change. But the UN body responsible for ensuring the money is spent effectively is facing critical questions...

16/02/2016

NEWS:
Report from the United Nations World Food Programme(UNWFP) on the climate outlook in southern Africa, having seen the lowest recorded rainfall in the last 35 years. Read more:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53199 #.VsLkXfl97IU

El Niño conditions have caused the lowest recorded rainfall between October and December across many regions of Southern Africa in at least 35 years, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has reported in its latest report.