Heatwaves attributable to climate change that hit most of Europe from June to July 2019 have served as a timely reminder of the long-standing need for concerted global action to tackle climate change, which affects all regions of the world. Extreme weather events—such as more frequent and intense droughts, floods, heatwaves and other climate-induced impacts, including accelerated desertification, coastal erosion, species extinction and habitat loss—are wreaking havoc on African economies. The adverse impacts of such events are being felt across the continent, as demonstrated recently by the tropical cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which caused substantial devastation in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, resulting in more than 1,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of people needing humanitarian assistance as well as a huge loss of infrastructure. Yet the continent has contributed the least to global warming, accounting for less than 4% of global emissions. At 0.8tCO2e/year, for example, per capita emissions in Africa are well below the global mean of 5tCO2e/year, and far lower than for other regions such as Europe and Asia.
Global action to tackle climate change remains lacklustre. Current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to climate action under the Paris Agreement remain far from what is needed to meet the temperature guardrail for safer growth. Unless ambitious steps are taken, then, the unfolding climate crisis poses an imminent existential threat. Without such action, it appears impossible for Africa to meet any of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or achieve the transformational outcomes envisioned in the continent’s Agenda 2063 and encapsulated in national development plans.
Africa’s visionary leadership to tackle climate change
In 2006, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) started a process to establish the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC). Motivations for this undertaking included: the mandate given to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 by the General Assembly of the United Nations “to provide internationally coordinated scientific assessments of the magnitude, timing and potential environmental and socio-economic impact of climate change and realistic response strategies”; concerns by ECA that climate change was already posing serious risks to Africa’s development agenda, particularly with regard to attaining the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals; and recognition that African countries could capitalize on climate change challenges and turn them into sustainable development opportunities for resilient economies.
Support for the creation of the Centre resonated in several high-level fora, including the Eighth Session of the African Union (AU) Summit in January 2007, and culminated in its establishment the following year at the First Joint Annual Meetings of the AU Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and the ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (COM). The Centre was given the dual mandate to provide policy guidance to member countries and to serve as the secretariat of the ClimDev-Africa programme. The mandate to provide climate policy guidance to member States included contributing to poverty reduction through successful mitigation and adaptation to climate change in Africa as well as improving the capacity of African countries to participate effectively in multilateral climate negotiations. The same meeting also endorsed the ClimDev-Africa programme as a joint initiative of ECA, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB), thereby helping focus the collective efforts of these three key African institutions on fostering a common and coordinated response to climate change throughout the continent.
Supporting member States in an evolving climate change landscape
Since becoming operational in 2011—with financial support from the Department for International Development (DFID), the European Union, France, the Nordic Development Fund (NDF), Norway, Sweden and USAID—the Centre has worked with pan-African institutions and initiatives, member States, universities, and research and policy institutions as well as with development and other implementing partners, and within ECA towards the delivery of its core mandated programmes. Highlights of the Centre’s achievements to date include:
Support for Africa’s effective participation in multilateral climate negotiations. Through its ClimDev-Africa work, ACPC has made substantial contributions towards reshaping the global climate change negotiations agenda by supporting the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change and the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, along with providing technical support and capacity-building to strengthen the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) on climate change to better address and defend African interests in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. For example, ACPC produced a landmark report on loss and damage in Africa arising from the adverse impacts of climate change in collaboration with AGN. In turn, AGN contributed substantively to the decision on Loss and Damage at the19th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC: the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts.
Africa Day and Africa Pavilion at the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. On behalf of ECA and in collaboration with AUC, AfDB and the New Partnership for Africa's Development, ACPC provides space, agency and voice for Africa’s effective participation in climate negotiation events—a process that started at the 17th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in 2011.