Initiating moves to climate-proof Africa | Daily Independent

Discouraged by the outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit last December as well as how negotiations at the just concluded talks in Bonn in Germany seem to have turned out, developing nations made up of mainly those from Africa are now looking inwards as a way out of the dilemma.

Convinced that an agreement that would save them from the negative impacts of a transforming climate are not likely to emerge even at major upcoming meetings this year in Mexico and next year in South Africa, the Africans appear to have given up on immediate compensation and instead resolved to place their destiny in their own hands.

Delegates from no fewer than two countries spoken to in Bonn expressed similar sentiments, saying that, ongoing moves notwithstanding, they were on high alert.

“We will not fold our hands and let the consequences (of climate change) ambush us,” stressed Nigeria’s climate chief, Dr. Victor Fodeke. “This is the beginning of a climate catastrophe; the beginning of sorrow (for developing nations).”

Head of the Kenyan Delegation to Bonn, Dr Muusya Mwinzi, said though Kenya remained hopeful about the start-up funds, it would nonetheless commence its mitigation and adaptation programmes.

“In as much as we want money from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, each country must be clear about its domestic priorities. We cannot wait any longer,” he said.

According to Mwinzi, Kenya has launched a Climate Change Response Strategy which will guide its programmes and policies. This, he noted, was in line with a resolve by African governments to develop their own internal mechanisms that are not wholly dependent on donor funding.

He added that this was prompted by concerns that developed countries were not living up to their commitments with regards to the start-up funds. The countries had promised last December in Copenhagen in Denmark to deploy $30 billion from now to 2012 in short-term finance to kick-start climate action in developing countries. Outgoing UNFCCC boss, Yvo de Boer, called on them in Bonn to endeavour to fulfill the pledge.

Mwinzi said, “It is not clear when the money will come, neither does anyone know the mechanisms that will be used to disburse it, if and when it comes. Kenya is focusing on forest rehabilitation and drought mitigation as part of the climate change response strategy.”

Fodeke, boss at the Special Climate Change Unit (SCCU) in the Federal Ministry of Environment and Head of the Nigerian Delegation to the Bonn Talks, submited that, as a backup action plan, nations had adopted the Strategic Preparedness Action Plan to Climate-proof Africa (SPAPCA) sponsored by Environment Minister, John Odey, at a recent conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“It is a proactive plan designed on one hand to address the consequences of climate change and, on the other, to explore opportunities for renewable energy as well as reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).”

Saying that the plan was being implemented regionally and ultimately nationally, Fodeke noted that West African environment ministers last February adopted a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Plan, even as Nigeria was fine-tuning its Climate Change Policy and Response Strategies (CCPRS).

The CCPRS, he disclosed, addresses issues related to adaptation/mitigation, mitigation with REDD, carbon credit opportunities, employment of a strategic adaptation programme as well as overhaul of early warning systems and a functional satellite-based information system.

Fodeke emphasised that it would take quite some time to clean up the clog of carbon emissions in the atmosphere as a result of decades of industrialisation by developed nations.

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Tags: Africa

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