LDCs Countries And ADP 2.11: A message To Officials Of The Least Developed Countries Including African Negotiators In Bonn

In the LDCs statement of ADP 2.10, the manuscript shows that they are still claiming to be the victim regardless of the fact that new technologies and scientific findings are not in hand.

I would like to highlight some of the phrases used in the statement.

As you could notice, LDCs acknowledged the great amount of effort as an indication to the importance of COP21. However, they add that the conference outcome is a primary concern to them, and that they look for effective solutions that ensure survival to their people, countries and economy.

Moreover, as they stress on that it is time for other parties to arrive at a text that will be acceptable to all parties, as a citizen of one of the LDCs (i.e. Sudan) I say, this mindset should have already become history considering the fact that developed countries started to set serious and efficient plans for climate change, and basically investment in renewable energy for fossil fuel divestment will require concessions from LDCs because the developed countries have the upper hand.

Therefore, it is a losing game that must be reconsidered in order not to be behind in terms of sustainable development and the catastrophic consequences that will occur if no fresh normalization takes place promptly between the two, and so that all obstacles including economic ones be removed.

On the other hand, I would like to reflect on that having multiple countries representing a single structure such as LDCs should be handled differently. If each of LDCs officials think of it in way of taking advantage of the situation to respectively increase the developmental ratio through various authentic investment collaborations in a collective action and not just in papers, they will be able to keep warming below 2 degree Celsius in their countries as the global goal and increase disaster risk resistance.

Such doings and transition to low-carbon resilient economy can be planned for in a blink of an eye if they undertake the right approach. For example, the five year cycle (as a short-term goal) is strongly important specifically for continuous improvement, and adopting such an approach shall accelerate plans and projects for LDCs since they have the least resources to do so in the first place, and this way they can facilitate showing the world what they do in regard to the climatic change year by year in the annual reports and value statements, and will be able to clarify the long-term goals in parallel with the common global goal.

What I am getting to here is that applications has to be carried out with planning at the same time taking into account the time lost to produce weakly intangible INDCs.

The world is at a point where no debate on whether climate change is true or not because what the world is witnessing makes whoever denies this fact falls into the category of non-reasonability, and I am positive that LDCs of all other countries realize what is happening of impacts especially in their regions. The world is also on the path to witness an increase in the global average temperature by more than 3 degrees Celsius, not to mention sea-level rise, melting glaciers and extreme weather patterns.

Furthermore, the ACT 2015 consortium revealed legal suggestions as one of the core components of Paris agreement and explained clearly within margins of equity the axes to drive climate action in the future. Those axes implies phasing out completely from GHG emissions by the second half of century, transforming energy production to become harmless to the environment, and along with both of these to-be-done simultaneously processes there have to be sufficient finance and capacity building. Not to forget that a number of factors are established to maintain the march forward, which are; Science-based assessment, Transparency and accountability, and Mechanism for facilitating and promoting implementation.

What must be focused on is finance as a major obstacle for roughly all LDCs, and Sudan in particular falls deeply into this category and must appeal for support while correcting a lot of wrong concepts about how to exhibit a fake strong position. The matter of fact indicates that this is an opportunity to get rid of all sanctions that keeps affecting the country’s economic situation. That is why whenever such an opportunity is available it should be seized on account of the consequent positive effect on livelihood and the coming food security challenge.

The Indian Ocean islands’ priorities, by Domoina Ratovozanany from Madagascar

The Great Island is both among the most vulnerable countries to climate change, the least developed countries (LDCs) and the Africa region, Malagasy negotiators must negotiate at least three strategic points during the Bonn intercessional from 19 to 23 October.

The first strategic course to negotiate is the financing of the actions of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, including the accuracy of the amount that developed countries should commit annually until 2020 and the accuracy of the financial mechanism. The availability of financing is indeed a sine qua none of the planned actions in most INDC submitted by developing countries.

The second point, related to climate finance, is the reintegration of carbon markets in the draft (removed in this latest version). The development of trade in carbon credits are among the key initiatives of the Malagasy government to the fight against deforestation, the Great Island has an interest in the establishment of a strong foundation for future carbon markets, including integrity and effectiveness.

The third urgent point to negotiate for Madagascar and Indian Ocean islands is the development of the article concerning "loss and damage", so that concrete and specific commitments are to be integrated. According to scientific predictions, natural disasters in the Indian Ocean will become more numerous and stronger in the next years.

A final binding point for all, but especially for the countries major emitters of greenhouse gases, that Madagascar, the LDCs and Africa must negotiate is the total decarburization of economies, meaning "zero emission" instead of "zero net emissions” (implies that emissions can continue as long as they are balanced elsewhere or in the future via negative emissions).

A message to Ghana’s negotiators, by Fariya Abubakari from Ghana

Ghana has been selected among fifty (50) countries including China, Australia, France, Togo and others worldwide to partake in the World Convention (COP21 host) conference in France because of its ardent commitment and contribution in the fight against climate change. In as much as some of us want the outcome to favor Africa, some African leaders do not go to the negotiation prepared. Is time for Ghana and other African leaders to speak up if not Africa will lose from a weak agreement?

The impact of climate change in Ghana is said to be on the rise these days due to a lot of devastating challenges confronting Ghanaians battle with on daily basis, for example the change in weather patterns resulting into drought in the north, failure of crops, torrential rainfall causing flood coupled with the recent fire disasters, one of them which has claimed over 150 lives in just one night last Wednesday June 3^rd, disrupted infrastructure services like water supply, telephone, electricity, roads and railways, , homes, schools, public buildings and markets. It required more than $25 million for emergency response and caused more than $130 million worth of direct damage. Ghana and African negotiators must push and negotiate diligently for the developed nations to foot the bill for any of these extreme events.

Africa’s variable climate is already contributing significantly to its development problems and yet government support that would help the poor households to adapt to climate change is limited. The secretary of the United Nation Framework for Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) estimates that US $220 million per year will be required by African countries to adapt to climate change by the year 2030. As developed countries is an obligation to provide financial resources to assist African countries to implement the UNFCCC.

In this respect, a financial mechanism to provide funds to developing countries has been established. Despite the existence of this mechanism, limited financial resources have been made available to Africa. There is therefore the need for Africa negotiators to aggressively push for a review of this financial mechanism to pave the way for the provision of financial assistance to African countries to address climate change challenge.

Ali Mohamed Ahmed ([email protected]), Domoina Ratovozanany ( [email protected] ), and Fariya Abubakari ([email protected]) are the climate trackers representing Africa in the 2015 Adopt a Negotiator team of COP 21 in Paris.