Climate Action 2011-2012

Special Focus: africa
adaptation
Adaption to climate change:
an African perspective
94 climateactionprogramme.org
© NASA
Africa urges developed countries to be more ambitious
in their emissions reduction commitments.
By Youba Sokona, Co-ordinator, African Climate
Policy Centre (ACPC)
According to climate scientists, global temperatures
have increased by an average of almost 1ºC since
the pre-industrial times. This, as confirmed by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and leading
national science academies, is largely due to anthropogenic
(human-produced) emissions of greenhouse gases. It is
also important to underscore that Africa is expected to
experience about one and a half times as much warming as
the global average. Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse
gases and the consequent rise in their concentration in the
atmosphere in turn result in sea level rise, and frequent
extreme weather events such as droughts and flooding.
The international community has agreed to contain the
increase in temperature at about 2ºC above that of the
pre-industrial period. To achieve this, developed countries
should commit to make significant reductions in their
greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, without rapid cuts in
emissions to keep global warming to its lowest possible
level, adaptation may be impossible in some parts of the
world where it is vitally needed.
It is now widely recognised and accepted that in Africa,
climate change will hamper the ability to adequately fulfil
the basic needs of populations, including access to food,
clean water, energy, and public health. Adaptation in Africa
is therefore a matter of survival. Concomitantly, adaptation
offers the chance to manage, spread risk and increase choices,
thereby contributing to sustainable development while
dealing with the underlying threats.
But reality tells us that any reduction of emissions by
developed countries alone will not be enough to achieve this
less ambitious target; hence, developing countries should also
embark upon such reductions. The dilemma is that developing
countries, such as those in Africa, have other pressing priorities
– such as bringing people out of poverty and meeting their
development objectives. In addition, Africa as a continent
contributes negligibly to total global greenhouse emissions.
Yet the scale of the impacts of climate change on Africa and its
poor will be devastating and will certainly be more significant
in the future under a business-as-usual scenario.
Global action on mitiGation
and adaptation
The implications of climate change on development make
both mitigation and in particular adaptation essential to
dealing with climate change at the global level. It is worth
highlighting here that the Kyoto Protocol represents the
only international instrument incorporating legally binding
emissions limitation and reduction commitments for
developed countries, and therefore should be allowed to
continue after 2012, but in a much enhanced form.
The Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM), has miserably
failed in Africa.
Africa therefore urges developed countries to be more
ambitious than they have been so far in their emissions
reduction commitments, if we are to remain in line with the
2ºC goal agreed in Cancun. Moreover, the rules of the Kyoto
Protocol such as those on land use, land use change and
forestry, force majeure, and additionality should be tightened
to ensure environmental integrity. One of its flexibility
mechanisms, namely the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM), has miserably failed in Africa, and as a result we
are yet to see its benefits. Africa therefore urges the world
to make the necessary reforms with a view to ensuring that
CDM projects have equitable geographic distribution and
that the reduction commitments by developed countries are
not too diluted by offsets.