MARAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - Africa's climate is one of the least-researched and poorly understood, but a new report provides reliable scientific information about the continent's changing climate, equipping decision-makers to plan better.

Africa's Climate: Helping decision-makers make sense of climate information is the first major programme-wide report to emerge from Future Climate for Africa (FCFA). FCFA comprises five major research projects to develop better climate information for Africa and to test how the new information could be used in decision-making, with potential benefit for millions of affected Africans.

African countries are facing many challenges in achievement of their development goals, which may be hampered by the impact of climate change," said Wilfried Pokam Mba of University of Yaounde, a FCFA researcher in Cameroon adding that in this context, fulfilment of development efforts over the continent requires reliable climate information.

"FCFA provides high quality climate information to help governments and businesses make more climate-resilient investments." This report, he says, is one such example of information being made available to help guide policy-makers, scientists and practitioners on climate change issues affecting the continent," said Sam Bickersteth, Chief Executive of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, which acts as the 'knowledge hub' for the FCFA programme.

He added, "It is hoped that decision-makers can steer the continent's infrastructure and development plans in a direction that can capitalise on the opportunities presented by climate change in future, while offsetting the potential ill effects."

Written by some 40 leading experts, the report presents an Africa-wide overview of climate trends, and is distilled into 15 fact-sheets that are tailored for specific sub-regions and countries. The report captures the current state of knowledge, and explores the 'burning scientific questions' that still need to be answered. FCFA's five research teams will be delivering many of these answers in the next three years, to 2019.

Some of the key findings are that climate modelling indicates that east Africa is expected to warm in the next five to 40 years, although changes in rainfall are much less certain and that extreme events (floods, droughts, heatwaves, and so on) are expected to change and in most cases increase into the future.

The region is severely understudied, because of a lack of scientific observation data, such as that from weather stations.

Southern African economies are exposed to weather and climate vulnerabilities, particularly through sectors such as agriculture, energy, and water management. It follows that the supply of essential resources are all extremely at risk as the climate becomes more changeable and extreme.

Most government departments are planning according to a three- to five-year time horizon, while the climate projections are based on decades-longer timeframes, such as looking to 2050 and beyond.

Applying past data to the future, which is also used by other ministries, is potentially problematic as it assumes that the future climate will mirror the past, which may not be the case for projected climate change.

Although there is uncertainty associated with the future climate projections, climate change will have significant economic impacts across Africa.
Future climate change is likely to lead to new risks: the negative impacts seen from today's climate variability are likely to become worse.
While there is often uncertainty in climate projections, this should not be a reason for inaction.

 "This report provides a synthesis of our current state of knowledge and identifies where further multi-disciplinary research like FCFA is needed," Chris Taylor of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UK).

He added, The impacts of climate change in Africa will affect lives across the whole world," said John Marsham, University of Leeds. "This report is an important first step for the FCFA programme. It addresses the urgent need to both improve climate change predictions for Africa, and to better use those predictions for decision-making."

Catherine Senior of the UK Met Office said the report describes the urgent need for climate models to provide more robust projections of future climate change over the African continent. "By applying an 'Africa lens' to developing climate models, we can speed up the rate of progress to deliver more confident projections for decision-makers to use," she said.

Victor Indasi at the Climate Systems Analysis Group (CSAG) at the University of Cape Town said Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate variability and change mainly due to its low adaptive capacity. "This FCFA report is therefore a must-read for everyone working on the continent especially within climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, water and energy," he said.

MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - new report released alongside the climate summit in Marrakech Morocco shows that Africa’s ‘Growth miracle’ in the 21st century has reversed a long standing narrative of pessimism about the region, giving experts hopes that the continent can easily industrialise without necessarily using fossil fuels and other forms of dirty energy.

“There are pessimisms, given the complex trade regimes, poor infrastructure, skills mix that is not adjacent to the market needs and poor access to finance, but at the same time, there are opportunities in the great potential of renewable energy sources in Africa, large labour force, appropriate skills mix among others,” said Carlos Lopez, Commissioner, Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

However, for the green economy to work, said Lopez, there must be industry policies that cut across all the sectors, there must be enough ambition, and there must be sophistication to give countries the potential to do it sustainably.

H. E Rhoda Peace Tumisiime referred to Noor 1, Morocco’s solar power plant at the town of Ouarzazate, which now provides 160 megawatts (MW) of the ultimate 580MW capacity, helping the country to save hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions per year.

“This beautiful solar project is evidence of the determination of African leaders’ commitment to development using green energy,” said Tumisiime, the Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission (AUC).

Many other countries have similar potentials not only in solar, but also in the geothermal and hydroelectric sectors. Kenya’s Rift Valley region for example, has a potential of producing 10,000 megawatts of geothermal energy, with the country tapping only 10 percent of it.

“There are many opportunities for Africa,” said Lopez at the launch of the report spearheaded by Pan African Institutions which include the African Union, the African Development Bank, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

The report, titled ‘Africa’s New Climate Economy,’ and launched on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 22nd Conference of Parties (COP 22) is the first to bring economic transformation together with development and climate change in one comprehensive assessment.

“The choices that African leaders make in the next few years will have major implications for economic growth, human well-being and climate resilience in the decades ahead,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former finance minister of Nigeria and a member of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. “It’s encouraging to see these three priorities brought together.”

The report points out that some 620 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity. But according to experts, countries have an opportunity to “leapfrog” to modern, energy efficient technologies, since the region has a rich portfolio of clean energy assets, including about 1,100 gigawatts of solar capacity, more than enough to meet total energy demand in the region.

“Across multiple sectors, economic, social and environmental transformations can reinforce each other and create numerous virtuous circles,” said Milan Brahmbhatt, lead author of the report. “Many of the policy and institutional reforms needed to boost growth and reduce poverty over the next 15 years will also contribute to better management of climate risk.”

MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - Indigenous communities at the ongoing climate negotiations 22^nd round of climate change negotiations in Marrakech, Morocco have demanded a direct access to the Green Climate Fund.

The Fund, abbreviated as GCF, is a global initiative to respond to climate change by investing into low-emission and climate-resilient development. The initiative was established by 194 governments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries, and to help adapt vulnerable societies to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

The indigenous groups, through their representatives at the Conference of Parties (COP 22) said that access to the climate finance will enable them to play a significant role in management of natural resources, which will go a long way to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Grace Balawang of Tebtebba, an indigenous peoples' organization based in Philippines said “indigenous people have been in direct contact with forests for a long time, have built indigenous knowledge system over the period and should therefore be supported to continue applying indigenous knowledge to protect the forests.”

Tarcila Rivera Zea of CHIRAPAQ, Peru added that despite the indigenous peoples’ wealth of knowledge, they have been hard hit by the impacts of climate change.

“We are the ones that suffer the consequences of climate change when droughts, floods, landslides and typhoons occur.” Ms Tarcila said. Through slides, she showed images of indigenous communities hit by drought and landslides.

“Some medicinal plant resources useful to the indigenous communities have been lost and there have been limited efforts to recover them.” She continued.

Ms Tarcila believes that if indigenous people get the necessary support, they will use their indigenous knowledge to create crops that are resistant to droughts, recover species that are facing extinction especially medicinal plant species important in their culture, improve and produce more environmentally friendly technology like the energy saving stoves that emit less smoke that has been part of their culture for a while.

However, the challenge standing between the communities and the necessary climate action is lack of financial muscle.

Stanley Ole Kimaren, Executive Director of Indigenous Livelihoods Partnerships, Kenya (ILEPA), said that though pastoralist groups like the Maasai have proven that there is an indigenous science behind the enhanced livelihood systems, there has not been sufficient support towards their initiatives.

“What we need is funding and capacity building support to engage more robustly in climate action and livelihood enhancement.” He said.

One of the funding sources eyed by the indigenous communities is the Green Climate Fund. However, a number of hurdles hinder their access to the fund meant for adaptation and building of climate resilience among vulnerable communities.

“The GCF instruments at the moment do not recognize indigenous people who are often most affected by climate change as a special constituency. We have also been excluded and marginalized from the decision making processes.” Mr. Kimaren said.

“The Green Climate Fund should recognize the rights of indigenous people and address the issue of direct access or a dedicated financial arrangement for the indigenous people,” He continued.

The Global Climate Fund was established in 2010 by 194 countries party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to assist developing countries to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

“We ask the 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) to provide a direct observer seat to the indigenous people to participate in the GCF discussions.”

There are approximately 370 million indigenous people in the world, belonging to 5,000 different groups, in 90 countries worldwide. They are often seen as the primary stewards of the planet’s natural resources. Their ways of life have contributed to the protection of the natural environment on which they depend on.  

MARRAKECH, Morocco (PAMACC News) - Climate experts and development partners at the ongoing summit on climate change in Marrakech, Morocco have said that the world needs an integrated approach for climate resilience, and landscape management in order to feed the ever increasing global population.

Speaking at an event alongside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 22nd session of the Conference of Parties (COP 22) on climate change, Rawleston Moore of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) said there is need to sustain ecosystem service flows by ensuring healthy soils and vegetative cover,  need to diversify land use so that farmers have options in production systems, and also need to safeguard high value species to ensure availability of adaptive genetic resources for food, fuel and fiber.

“For the world to remain climate resilient, there is also need to preserve local traditional indigenous knowledge in an integrated approach,” said Moore, the Senior Climate Change Specialist for Adaptation at the GEF.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) the world population is expected to grow by over a third, or 2.3 billion people, between 2009 and 2050, with nearly all the growth taking place in the developing countries.

These trends, according to FAO, mean that market demand for food would continue to grow. Demand for cereals for example, for both food and animal feeds is projected to reach some 3 billion tonnes by 2050, up from today’s nearly 2.1 billion tonnes.

Amid the changing climatic conditions, experts have warned that without extra effort and innovative means of adaptation and food production, there will be a huge food deficit in the near future.

As a result, the GEF has released some $120 through Islamic Development Bank to support food security programmes in 12 African countries.

“Projects have been initiated in different African countries, and am very happy that people’s livelihoods have changed for the better,” said Dr Bashir Jama Adan, the Manager, Agriculture and Food Security Division at the Islamic Development Bank. “Those who depended on food aid can now feed themselves, and people are able to generate income from simple climate resilience projects,” he added.

According to Ketty Lamaro, the Under Secretary Department of Pacification and Development in the Office of Uganda’s Prime Minister, dryland food production projects in Northern Uganda have restored peace in areas such as Karamoja, where households who solely depended on pastoralism can now cultivate food as an alternative way of survival.

However, for communities to respond well to climate resilience programmes, Moore said that there must be political goodwill.

“We need policies to promote incentive mechanisms for good practices that deliver environment and development benefits at scale,” he said.

The Islamic Development Bank provides interest-free financing to vulnerable communities, where profits are shares equitably with the beneficiaries, and losses shared if at all they occur.