ABUJA, Nigeria (PAMACC News) - Following suggestions that Donald Trump could only consider remaining a signatory of the Paris Agreement if new terms were reached, President of France, Emmanuel Macron has declared that the landmark Paris climate deal will not be renegotiated.

The French President's comments came during his address to the UN General Assembly amidst renewed hopes that the world's second largest polluter would remain tied to the accord's carbon emission targets.

Macron also told his audience at the United Nations General Assembly that "the door will be open" for the United States to return to the agreement if it so wishes.

"This agreement will not be renegotiated." "We will not retreat" he added.

Macron noted that the international community had so far fallen short of successfully addressing major threats such as climate change. Now more than ever before, we need common efforts to tackle environmental challenges and other global issues, Macron said, including war and terrorism.

"We can only address those challenges through multilateralism, not through survival of the fittest."

Macron also hit back at US President Donald Trump on Tuesday by staunchly defending the Iran nuclear deal at the UN General Assembly, speaking soon after Trump called the deal an "embarrassment to the United States".

“Renouncing it would be a grave error, not respecting it would be irresponsible, because it is a good accord that is essential to peace at a time where the risk of an infernal conflagration cannot be excluded,” Macron said.

The French president added that he had made his position clear to both Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when he met with them on Monday.

ADDIS ABABAm Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Promoting a robust infrastructure growth in Africa will be a key driver to the continent’s development agenda, experts say.

According to James Murombedzi, coordinator, African Climate Centre, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the solution pathways to the success of Africa’s development agenda lies in infrastructure development to permit for the full exploitation of the rich resource potential the continent is endowed with.

In a paper presented under the theme “China-Africa Linkages in the Agricultural Sector and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities” in Addis Ababa, Murombedzi said that poor infrastructure development was a huge setback to agriculture growth, thus a constraint to the fight against rural poverty.

“There is need to push for infrastructure development in Africa. Investments in infrastructure are key drivers to the African rural development agenda,” he noted.

UN records show that Africa’s infrastructure financing needs are estimated at $135 billion per year. But currently, only around $77 billion is being funded, leaving a financing gap of almost $60 billion.

Close to 50% of the current financing is from governments and other public sources, with much of the rest made up by loans and grants from development partners, Murombedzi told media representatives in Addis Ababa.

 Investments, he notes, are required in order to increase the productivity of agriculture, irrigation, energy, transportation, and marketing.

“However, such investments should empower, not dispossess smallholder farmers and the vulnerable communities,” he cautioned.

Thus the need to partner with other development actors to better drive the Agenda 2063 and help Africa meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

“China and Africa can develop strong partnerships to promote these infrastructure development agenda,” he said.

Opening the ceremony of the Media Workshop on “Reporting Africa-China Engagements, Agriculture Developments, Climate Change, Industrialization, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063”,Chen Xufeng Charge d’Affaires of the Chinese Mission to AU, said China was ready to accompany Africa in efforts towards bridging the infrastructure deficient  gap.

“China has today become Africa's largest development partner, main investor and engineering contractor. China-Africa cooperation faces new historic opportunities geared at accompanying efforts towards development especially in the area of infrastructure” Chen Xufeng said.

China he assured was firmly committed to promoting  cooperation with the African continent through common, intensive, green, secure and open development and supporting Africa’s efforts to address the main bottlenecks, namely lack of quality infrastructure, professional and skilled personnel and financial resources.

“China is ready to help Africa resolve three fundamental issues of employment, food and health by developing self-sustainable system of industrialization, food security, and disease prevention and control system, he noted.

China it was announced has completed a number of mega infrastructure projects including the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, the Nairobi-Mombasa Railway in Kenya, and the Abuja-Kaduna Rail in Nigeria. Rapid progress has also been made in production capacity cooperation in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and the Republic of Congo as pilot and pioneering countries and a dozen of priority partners for production capacity cooperation. There is also the construction of special economic zones and industrial parks in Ethiopia, Zambia, Uganda, Republic of Congo and Egypt with encouraging results, creating a large number of jobs for local community, the ambassador said.

The workshop in Ethiopia accordingly was organized  for Africa and Chinese journalists by Oxfam International’s Africa –China Dialogue Platform, ACDP and the Wits Africa Reporting Project.

The workshop focused on the crucial sectors of agriculture, climate change and industrialization, SDG’s and Agenda 2063.

Oxfam authorities pointed to the fact that agriculture and climate change have direct effects on food security in Africa while industrialization is at the center of Africa/China promulgations.

“ Industrialization is seen as an antidote to the high levels of poverty in Africa, which is manifest in frequent cases of famine,” says Apollos Nwafor, Pan African Director, Oxfam International.

According to the coordinator Africa-China reporting project, Barry Van Wyk, the project is to enable and support journalists to tell the stories of how the lives and experiences of people and communities of Africa are being changed and impacted by the comprehensive phenomenon of Africa’s engagement and interaction with China.

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (PAMACC News) - Ahead of the writing of the Paris rulebook and preparations for the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue, Major Groups attending this year’s Pre-AMCEN sessions have called on African governments to take stock of the current status of implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and identify barriers that need to be addressed with a view to enhancing ambition beyond what currently exists as NDCs.
 
Speaking at the African civil society workshop heralding the 16th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in Libreville, Gabon, Sam Ogallah of the Pan African Justice Alliance (PACJA) stressed the need for the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue (FD2018) to specifically highlight potential opportunities where countries can increase their ambition.
 
“The FD2018 process, should as matter of priority recognize that collective ambition in current NDCs remains inadequate to pursue effort to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. It should enhance ambition and commitment from Parties to make new pledges and submit updated or new NDCs ahead of 2020 which should be sufficiently ambitious to close the emission gap, and identify what further work is needed to enable countries to enhance their ambition, especially in countries with lower capabilities” he said.
 
According to Ogallah, “African leaders must use the FD2018 to leverage lessons and best practices, in identifying ways to overcome barriers and opportunities to enhance the enabling environment, and engage in win-win climate and sustainable actions for Africa.”
 
Robert Chimambo of the Zambian Climate Change Network (ZCCN) believes that the facilitative dialogue provides “a veritable opportunity to collectively look into options on how current NDCs can be revised and new ambition generated to strengthen individual Parties’ contributions by 2020.”
 
Chimambo called on African ministers and negotiators to identify ways in which Parties could implement climate action in areas not covered by their NDC or surpass the ambition level outlined therein while exploring ways of fast-tracking the implementation of NDCs and the Sustainable Development Goals.
 
Many of the stakeholders who addressed the workshop urged African leaders, mayors, negotiators, private sectors, and other non-state actors to engage fully into the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue, and lead or champion specific actions and initiatives in various sectors.
They also called for the inclusion of non-Party stakeholders who are always at the front-lines of implementation in the facilitative dialogue’s examination of barriers and opportunities for greater ambition.
 
According to the African Major Groups, action from non-state actors can contribute to the achievement of NDCs, and can also increase their level of ambition.
 
2018 Facilitative Dialogue
 
The Conference of the Parties (COP) at its 21st session in Paris decided to conduct a Facilitative Dialogue in conjunction with the 22nd session of the COP to assess the progress in implementing certain COP decisions.
 
These decisions border on identifying relevant opportunities to enhance the provision of financial resources, including for technology development and transfer, and capacity-building support, with a view to identifying ways to enhance the ambition of mitigation efforts by all Parties, including identifying relevant opportunities to enhance the provision and mobilisation of support and enabling environments.
 
According to the UNFCCC, the first part of the Facilitative Dialogue will offer space for an assessment of progress made, with regard to the enhancement of pre-2020 ambition, and the provision of means of implementation.
 
It will also provide opportunities to exchange relevant information on all aspects to be addressed in this Facilitative Dialogue, and particularly provide the space to showcase specific case studies or initiatives related to ambition and the provision of support.
 
The FD2018 will be a focal point of COP23 in November this year as it is mandated to take stock of the collective efforts of Parties towards the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal in Article 4 and to inform the preparation of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), the next round of which are due by 2020.

LIBREVILLE, Gabon (PAMACC News) - Leading non-state actors and civil society groups from across Africa have called on African governments to kick-start the process of designing an African Rule Book for the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
 
The book, according to them, will help in galvanising a robust presentation of African perspectives in the Paris Rule Book which is being formulated.
 
The call was made today at the ongoing civil society consultative talks which precedes the 16th session of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) in Libreville, Gabon.
 
Recognising the strategic importance of the Paris Rule Book to the implementation of the climate agreement, the non-state stakeholders urged African environment ministers to ensure that the continent is not left behind in the efforts at crafting the regulatory framework for the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
 
“We want an African rule Book for the implementation of the Paris Agreement that will better measure and manage climate action and support in the light of varying quality and level of information included in countries’ national climate plans (NDCs),” John Bideri, the Co-Chair of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) said.
 
“An African Rule Book will help in scaling up actions and support at the right pace as many of the NDCs submitted by countries are not ambitious enough to achieve the Paris Agreement’s objectives,” Bideri added.
 
The urgency of the call for an African Rule Book is further underlined by the latest UNEP Gap Report which revealed that the climate plans submitted by all parties to the Paris Agreement can only limit global warming to 3o degree C if fully implemented and the conditions highlighted in the submissions are met.
 
This alarming report, according to Yamide Dagnet of the World Resources Institute, justifies the readiness of civil society groups like PACJA and WRI to mobilise resources and partnerships capable of supporting the drafting of the African Rule Book by African governments.
 
The Paris Rule Book
 
At the recent UN climate negotiations in Bonn which featured the 46th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 46) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 46) as well as the session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement, negotiations on the key elements of the Paris Rule Book began in earnest.
 
According to Achala Abeysinghe, a long serving legal and strategy advisor to the Least Developed Countries Group (LDC), “The Paris Agreement is just an empty shell without the rulebook”.
 
The Paris Rule Book seeks to establish the rules and processes needed to provide the operational guidance for fulfilling the ambition of the Agreement and providing clarity on countries’ efforts to reach the global goal.
 
The rule book comes on the heels of the Paris Agreement which created an international framework that outlines what governments and wider stakeholders are expected to do strengthening the global response to climate change and limit the temperature increase to 1.5 - 2 degrees C.
 
It therefore seeks to flesh out how the global response will be orchestrated.
 
By 2018 negotiators are expected to reach an agreement on the rule book which will include details on how countries will communicate their efforts with regards to adaptation, climate finance, transfer of technology and capacity building, and how they will be held accountable for their commitments.
 
It will also establish how collective efforts will be reviewed, leading to scaled-up actions and support every five years; as well as create a facilitatory process for the implementation of the agreement and promote compliance.