KUMASI, Ghana (PAMACC News) - President Trump’s Executive Order on Climate Change will have far reaching impacts on many developing countries, especially on the African continent, which is already bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change.
 
African Civil Society, under the umbrella of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), says reversing the Obama climate plan is one of the greatest injustices and an onslaught on Mother Earth, especially in the fight against climate change.
 
The Energy Independence Executive Order, signed by US President, Donald Trump on March 29, 2017, has been hailed by groups in the fossil fuels business, but condemned by environmental campaigners as over a dozen measures enacted by President Obama to curb climate change have been suspended.
 
“Trump’s Climate Change Executive Order is rolling back the many years of global efforts that yielded the Convention and the Paris Agreement. The global community and other world leaders should resist the temptation of following the footstep of Trump to take the world several steps back in the fight against climate change,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA Secretary-General.
 
For a safer world, countries that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement will urgently need to raise their ambition to increase the level of their greenhouse emission reduction targets communicated to the UNFCCC and keeping the global temperature to below 1.5OC.
 
The current aggregate level of the communicated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are estimated to lead to the average global temperature increase above 30C by 2030, unless radical emissions reduction targets are urgently adopted by Parties.
 
The NDC of the United State of America submitted to the UNFCCC on March 31, 2015 commits USA to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 26%–28% below the 2005 level by 2025.
 
The US effort constitutes a part to the global comity of nations’ efforts to keep the planet safe.
 
“As one of the major contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions, the US continues to owe a huge ecological debt that can only be paid by the demonstration that it is committed to servicing this climate debt in an equitable, fair and just manner. Such efforts should align with the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capacity (CBDRC) of the Convention,” said a statement from PACJA.
 
African Civil Society is worried efforts to improve people’s vulnerability to climate change are being eroded by Trump’s Executive Order.
 
Currently, impacts of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa have led to deaths of humans and livestock in the region. Farmers in most parts of the Africa are feeling impacts of the changing climate in their agricultural production and productivity.
 
According to Sam Ogallah, Programme’s Manager at PACJA, Trump's action on climate change is likely to exacerbate the current migrant crisis.
 
"Climate change impacts are pushing many youth out of developing countries in search of better lives in developed countries. Some of these youth in an attempt to migrate to Europe have lost their lives. Addressing climate change in developing countries can go a long way to solving migrant crisis in Europe and other developed countries,” he said.

KUMASI, Ghana (PAMACC News) - President Trump’s Executive Order on Climate Change will have far reaching impacts on many developing countries, especially on the African continent, which is already bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change.
 
African Civil Society, under the umbrella of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), says reversing the Obama climate plan is one of the greatest injustices and an onslaught on Mother Earth, especially in the fight against climate change.
 
The Energy Independence Executive Order, signed by US President, Donald Trump on March 29, 2017, has been hailed by groups in the fossil fuels business, but condemned by environmental campaigners as over a dozen measures enacted by President Obama to curb climate change have been suspended.
 
“Trump’s Climate Change Executive Order is rolling back the many years of global efforts that yielded the Convention and the Paris Agreement. The global community and other world leaders should resist the temptation of following the footstep of Trump to take the world several steps back in the fight against climate change,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA Secretary-General.
 
For a safer world, countries that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement will urgently need to raise their ambition to increase the level of their greenhouse emission reduction targets communicated to the UNFCCC and keeping the global temperature to below 1.5OC.
 
The current aggregate level of the communicated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are estimated to lead to the average global temperature increase above 30C by 2030, unless radical emissions reduction targets are urgently adopted by Parties.
 
The NDC of the United State of America submitted to the UNFCCC on March 31, 2015 commits USA to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 26%–28% below the 2005 level by 2025.
 
The US effort constitutes a part to the global comity of nations’ efforts to keep the planet safe.
 
“As one of the major contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions, the US continues to owe a huge ecological debt that can only be paid by the demonstration that it is committed to servicing this climate debt in an equitable, fair and just manner. Such efforts should align with the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capacity (CBDRC) of the Convention,” said a statement from PACJA.
 
African Civil Society is worried efforts to improve people’s vulnerability to climate change are being eroded by Trump’s Executive Order.
 
Currently, impacts of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa have led to deaths of humans and livestock in the region. Farmers in most parts of the Africa are feeling impacts of the changing climate in their agricultural production and productivity.
 
According to Sam Ogallah, Programme’s Manager at PACJA, Trump's action on climate change is likely to exacerbate the current migrant crisis.
 
"Climate change impacts are pushing many youth out of developing countries in search of better lives in developed countries. Some of these youth in an attempt to migrate to Europe have lost their lives. Addressing climate change in developing countries can go a long way to solving migrant crisis in Europe and other developed countries,” he said.

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa have established a framework that will see a rapid implementation of climate change policies in their different countries into practical ground actions.

The peoples’ representatives through the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change, known with French acronym as REPACC say they are now set to bridge policy and actions on the ground that have so far lagged behind in visible climate change projects and infrastructure.

Even with the existence of climate change policies that continue to stay on paper and the creation of institutions that have continued to lay fallow, little or no actions are visible on the ground for most countries in sub-saran Africa, experts say.

“ It is time for action to move climate change challenges in Africa to a new level with adapted infrastructures and skills that will help find lasting solution,” says Cavaye Djibril, House Speaker of the National Assembly in Cameroon.

He said the countries in Africa,most of who submitted their NDCs and signed the Paris Agreement(to quantify climate protection goal) lack the necessary expertise to effect national measures and projects to make climate finance available for the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

African Parliamentarians say they have now got the backing of the Climate Policy and Energy Security Programme of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Germany with the training of the required expertise to formulate , prepare, supervise the implementation of projects to help their different countries adapt to climate impacts.

To that effect, a cooperation agreement was signed in Yaounde on March 27, between the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change to help fast-track measures needed to bridge climate policies into action in the different countries, to speed up the emergence of body of knowledge on climate and the relevant legislation and to manifest the role of parliamentarians in African climate change responses in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, globally, regionally and locally.

According to the President of the Permanent Executive Committee of the Pan African Parliamentarian Network on Climate Change (PAPNCC), Cameroonian born, Hon. Awudu Mbaya Cyprian, the backing of  the German Konrad Foundation now gives African law makers the claws to better push climate policies to action.

“The Pan African Parliament for Climate Change will hence be better armed for actions that will bring m the much expected solutions to climate change challenges,” Awudu said.

Professor Olivier Ruppel, resident representative and director, climate policy and energy programme of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung said technical expertise, financial support with help in the infrastructure development and international cooperation needed by African countries to implement climate change projects on the ground.

Cameroon created the Cameroon Councils against Climate Change, National Observatory on Climate Change in 2011 aimed at monitoring the effects of climate change on people, agriculture and ecosystems, and guiding work on climate action.

Other policy actions have since followed  like the creation of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction under the ministry of territorial administration, becoming a member of COMIFAC and submitting a national REED+ plan in 2013 etc. But these have not succeeded to hold the line of climate disasters in the country, officials noted.

Like in Cameroon, Parliamentarians in the continent believe with the active involvement of law makers and support from their new partner, the necessary actions including relevant legislation will bring a lasting solution to climate change impacts in the country in particular and  sub-saharan Africa in general.

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa have established a framework that will see a rapid implementation of climate change policies in their different countries into practical ground actions.

The peoples’ representatives through the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change, known with French acronym as REPACC say they are now set to bridge policy and actions on the ground that have so far lagged behind in visible climate change projects and infrastructure.

Even with the existence of climate change policies that continue to stay on paper and the creation of institutions that have continued to lay fallow, little or no actions are visible on the ground for most countries in sub-saran Africa, experts say.

“ It is time for action to move climate change challenges in Africa to a new level with adapted infrastructures and skills that will help find lasting solution,” says Cavaye Djibril, House Speaker of the National Assembly in Cameroon.

He said the countries in Africa,most of who submitted their NDCs and signed the Paris Agreement(to quantify climate protection goal) lack the necessary expertise to effect national measures and projects to make climate finance available for the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

African Parliamentarians say they have now got the backing of the Climate Policy and Energy Security Programme of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Germany with the training of the required expertise to formulate , prepare, supervise the implementation of projects to help their different countries adapt to climate impacts.

To that effect, a cooperation agreement was signed in Yaounde on March 27, between the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change to help fast-track measures needed to bridge climate policies into action in the different countries, to speed up the emergence of body of knowledge on climate and the relevant legislation and to manifest the role of parliamentarians in African climate change responses in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, globally, regionally and locally.

According to the President of the Permanent Executive Committee of the Pan African Parliamentarian Network on Climate Change (PAPNCC), Cameroonian born, Hon. Awudu Mbaya Cyprian, the backing of  the German Konrad Foundation now gives African law makers the claws to better push climate policies to action.

“The Pan African Parliament for Climate Change will hence be better armed for actions that will bring m the much expected solutions to climate change challenges,” Awudu said.

Professor Olivier Ruppel, resident representative and director, climate policy and energy programme of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung said technical expertise, financial support with help in the infrastructure development and international cooperation needed by African countries to implement climate change projects on the ground.

Cameroon created the Cameroon Councils against Climate Change, National Observatory on Climate Change in 2011 aimed at monitoring the effects of climate change on people, agriculture and ecosystems, and guiding work on climate action.

Other policy actions have since followed  like the creation of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction under the ministry of territorial administration, becoming a member of COMIFAC and submitting a national REED+ plan in 2013 etc. But these have not succeeded to hold the line of climate disasters in the country, officials noted.

Like in Cameroon, Parliamentarians in the continent believe with the active involvement of law makers and support from their new partner, the necessary actions including relevant legislation will bring a lasting solution to climate change impacts in the country in particular and  sub-saharan Africa in general.