Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
04 March 2020
Post No. 133
The Week’s Contents
• Climate Action Month and Weeks
• Climate Protection and Stake for African Children – Phase 3, with Glasgow Steps It Up as a Working Theme
• Week Beginning 02/03/2020: Climate Investment Funds (Key Climate Action No. 1)
… and much more!
Key Messages
~ Climate Action Month and Weeks
For those who are familiar with CENFACS’ development calendar, they can remember that March is the Climate Action month at CENFACS. This year’s Climate Action Month will be a continuing support to the Paris Agreement in our own way and means while working within the contents of this Agreement and in line with similar actions undertaken by other organisations across the world to make it become a reality one day.
The Paris Agreement, which was adopted in 2015, is an essential step to address climate change. As we all know, this Agreement has the central goal of keeping global average temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Supporting it makes sense.
However, the world has to take action and make it work. To know what other parts of the world (like Africa) are doing, we are going to include in our Climate Action Month the actions carried out by Africans, and amongst them are young Africans. This will lead us to closely look at what we can call Climate Action Movements in Africa.
Since we dedicated 2020 as our Mission Year, to impregnate this dedication to our Climate Action Month we are going to work ways of making Climate Action our Mission for March 2020. We are going to do it through the holding of four weeks of key climate actions this March as follows.
⇒ Week beginning 02/03/2020: Climate Investment Funds
⇒ Week beginning 09/03/2020: Integration of Disaster Risk Measures
⇒ Week beginning 16/03/2020: Sustainable Natural Resource Management
⇒ Week beginning 23/03/2020: Climate Change Pledges
To support and or enquire about CENFACS’ Climate Action Month and Weeks, please contact CENFACS.
You will find below some notes about the first Key Action scheduled for this week; action which is on Climate Investment Funds.
~ Climate Protection and Stake for African Children (CPSAC) – Phase 3, with Glasgow Steps It Up as a Working Theme
Phase 3, which is Taking Climate Protection and Stake for African Children at the Implementation Level (TCPSACI), of our project known as Climate Protection and Stake for African Children (CPSAC) has resumed this week.
In our post of 18 December 2019, we told you that the Madrid talks, which were held under COP25, did not deliver on our key demand and many of the elements of CENFACS’ Compendium of Climate Advocacy.
The aim of the Madrid negotiations was to finalise the rule book for the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. However, Madrid missed the opportunity for the protection and stake for children and future generations.
Although the agreement reached amongst countries at COP25 in Madrid failed to create the rules for trading carbon emissions credits and help developing countries to pay for climate damages; we said we would continue to follow up these negotiations in 2020.
Phase 3 (that is Taking Climate Protection and Stake for African Children at the Implementation Level) is still on course. The next follow-up and working theme for this Phase 3 is: Glasgow Steps It Up.
Under the Main Development section of this post you find the notes about Glasgow Steps It Up, this year’s TCPSACI working theme.
~ Week Beginning 02/03/2020: Climate Investment Funds (Key Climate Action No. 1)
Before looking at the first key action scheduled for this week, let us try to give precision about the kind of climate action we are talking about. To do that, we are going to refer to what the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says about climate action. The UNDP (1) argues this:
“Climate action means stepped-up efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-induced impacts, including: climate-related hazards in all countries; integrating climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning; and improving education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity with respect to climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. It requires mobilizing US$100 billion annually by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries in moving towards a low-carbon economy.”
It is clear from the above definition that in order to take climate action or the above mentioned actions, it requires stepping up investment efforts.
According to the African Development Bank (2), the Climate Investment Funds, which are a support to developing countries to achieve low-carbon and climate-resilient development, provides these countries with grants, concessional loans, risk mitigation instruments, and equity that leverage significant financing from the private sector, multilateral development banks and other sources.
As an implementing agency of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), the African Development Bank distinguishes four key programmes of Climate Investment Funds, which are: Clean Technology Fund, Forest Investment Programme, Pilot Programme Climate Resilience, and Scaling Up Renewable Energy Programme.
Our action (key climate action no. 1) is to check whether or not these investment funds reach Africa-based Sister Organisations, especially those of voluntary sector. If these funds reach them, one needs to ask in what proportion or percentage. If they do not reach them, action needs to be taken. Taking action in this matter can determine the gap that needs to be filled up and the kinds of advocacy action to take in order to increase their share in the climate funds or find alternative investment funds.
To enquire and or support this first key climate action, please contact CENFACS.
(1) https://www.sdfinance.undp.org/content/sdfinance/en/home/sdg/goal-13–climate-action.html
(2) https://www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/initiatives-partnerships/climate-investment-funds-cif
Extra Messages
~ Climate Action Movements in Africa
As introduced above, we are adding to our climate action climate actions taken by Africans in Africa, particularly on how they are shaping up the hearts and minds of people to influence the climate debate. Climate Action Movements in Africa (CAMA) are this type of environmental activism at local level, at person-to-person, by actions–based organisations working on a voluntary basis.
They are organisations of different sizes and shapes which can be classified in various forms. The common denominator to them is that they are grassroots movements that are trying to push the climate agenda forward in Africa and the world from the bottom up in places where sometimes ordinary people are more preoccupied with their daily pressure to economically survive rather than worrying about the changing climate.
Examples of such organisations or actions include the Fridays for Future Movement, 350 Africa.org, etc. We are looking at their climate action contributions as well as their efforts in poverty reduction work in Africa.
To add your climate action and or to support our Climate Action Month and Weeks, please contact CENFACS.
~ Climate Action Mission
Our Mission Year is still kept moving on as this March we are linking it with our Climate Action. CENFACS’ 2020 Mission Year is a coordinated plan by CENFACS to provide what is needed and necessary to support any efforts of poverty reduction. In the context of Climate Action Month, it is about creating or looking at developmental interactions between climate action and poverty reduction mission. In other words, CENFACS’ Mission Year is a mission to help reduce and end poverty. In order to reduce and end poverty, we need as well to take action on the adverse impacts of climate change that create or increase poverty.
To support and enquire about the Climate Action Mission, please contact CENFACS.
~ Covid-19, Poverty Reduction and Climate Action
Our serial thoughts on Covid-19 and its impacts on or implications for poverty reduction continue by bringing in a climate action dimension. We have brought in this dimension since we are in CENFACS’ Climate Action Month.
To enable us and our readers to figure out these implications or impacts, we have the following thoughts on how Covid-19 could affect climate action and poverty reduction.
Impact of Covid-19 on climate action
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action Goal) aims to mobilize US$100 billion annually by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries to both adapt to climate change and invest in low-carbon development. If the impact of Covid-19 is so severe, this could affect the mobilisation of climate funds, which can in return impact on the ability of people and communities to adapt and to invest in low-carbon development.
We have already heard that many economies around the world have started to revise their economic growth forecasts for this year and next year by reducing their growth rates. This could as well affect the actions that our Africa-based organisations are taking to curb greenhouse gas emissions in Africa.
Impact of Covid-19 on poverty reduction action
To control and slow down the pace of Covid-19, there are sets of measures that have been taken worldwide including in Africa. If the impact of Covid-19 lasts longer, this could affect, to some extent, efforts and actions to reduce poverty; let alone its effects on other areas of sustainable development (social, economic and environmental).
The above likely impacts tell us that we may start to see the possibility of interrelationships between Covid-19, poverty reduction and climate action as Coronavirus crisis persists. Although we are still far away to effectively assess the real impacts of Covid-19 on poverty reduction and climate action; there is a need for a swift and rapid action to sensibly reduce the spread of Covid-19 and its impacts in order to keep poverty reduction and climate action works on track and unchallenged. The thoughts on Covid-19 continue…
Main Development
• Climate Protection and Stake for African Children (CPSAC) – Phase 3, with Glasgow Steps It Up as our working theme
This month, we have started the preparation in following the COP26. The 26th Session of the Conference to the Parties (CO26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is expected to take place from 9 to 20 November 2020 at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow. We are going to follow it through the working theme of Glasgow Steps It Up.
• • What do we mean by Glasgow Steps It Up?
Glasgow Steps It Up (GSIU) means that we will be following the climate change talks to be held in Glasgow next November, and we expect the Glasgow gathering to step up and respond to our climate demand. GSIU is also the mantra or motto for this year’s climate talks follow up.
Glasgow Steps It Up to save the environment is another opportunity to advance on what was achieved in Madrid and at other previous climate gatherings and talks.
GSIU is also a further occasion to try to bridge the gaps within the climate community so that the stumbling points of COP25 can be resolved.
Without anticipating anything about GSIU, let us hope that at these coming climate talks the parties will respond to our climate demand which is and remains: to give and implement climate protection and stake for African children; the African Children being a sample of our working climate advocacy model. This demand is undertaking through the follow up of global climate talks like the incoming climate talks (COP26) to be held at Glasgow, Scotland.
As said above, our demand is expressed through our Climate Talks Follow up project. This project has been implemented under the sub-project entitled Climate Protection and Stake for African Children (CPSAC). There have been three phases in this project.
• • Phases of CENFACS’ Climate Talks Follow-up
The following are the phases making our Climate Talks Follow-up.
Phase 1: The First African Children Generation of the Millennium Development Goals and the Climate Stake
Phase 2: Climate Protection and Stake for African Children
Phase 3: Taking Climate Protection and Stake for African Children at the Implementation Level
Actually, we are in Phase 3, which is the implementation phase and which is about Taking Climate Protection and Stake for African Children at the Implementation Level (TCPSACI).
• • What else we would like to follow through GSIU
We will particularly monitor the following talking and stumbling points:
√ Article 6 of the Paris climate accord; article that governs international carbon markets
√ The need for international financing mechanisms for developing countries to deal with climate change
√ The mechanisms for financing climate change reduction in developing countries
√ The creation of a market-based system to preserve nature
√ The system for paying for climate-linked disasters
√ Inequalities in the mechanisms for financing climate change reduction
√ Financial mobilization to respond to climate impacts in vulnerable countries and for vulnerable children
We will also observe how the disagreements between climate vulnerable and emerging nations, and between rich polluters and developing countries will be resolved on pending issues such as the slashing of greenhouse emissions, the payment for loss and damage, climate emergency compensation, the double counting of climate emergency etc.
We will particularly check how the above mentioned points and issues will help in protecting children.
We will follow the next rounds of the United Nations climate negotiations scheduled in Bonn (Germany) in June before the COP26 in Glasgow in 2020.
One could hope that new climate pledges (made about curbing greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement) will be respected by then.
One could also hope that you will continue to support CENFACS’ Climate Talks Follow-up project and the current phase (Phase 3) of this project, which is about Taking Climate Protection and Stake for African Children at the Implementation Level.
• • The Compendium of CENFACS’ Climate Advocacy
••• What is the Compendium of CENFACS’ Climate Advocacy?
It is a summary of what CENFACS and its beneficiaries would like the climate community (like the one gathering on annual basis to talk about climate change, the COP) to achieve for children, particularly but not exclusively African children, in terms of outcomes.
The Compendium provides several main points shaping our key demand which is as follows.
••• Key Points for the Compendium of CENFACS’ Climate Advocacy
The campaigning points that we would like to see implemented in the final make-up of climate proposals include the following:
⇒ Climate decisions need to be supportive of the protection and stake of children, especially those from poor nations
⇒ The children-friendliness of the package of the climate contents
⇒ The degree of integration of children’s needs and involvement of child protectors and advocates in the facilitative dialogue to support the implementation process
⇒ Climate friendly modern solutions to child protection against climate change
⇒ Support of children especially those from poor nations to transition to a circular economy
⇒ Support to climate neutral projects that are children-friendly
⇒ The fit of finance and insurance packages available on the market for the needs of children from developing countries like those of Africa
⇒ Effective ways of distributing these packages amongst children in need
⇒ Financial need assessment of the costs of climate protection for children to meet children’s climate protection needs (from the basic to the more complex ones); needs including those to reduce poverty and hardships, financial and insurance requests to meet and address the adverse impacts and effects of climate change
⇒ Climate Change Action plans in the context of local climate action (i.e. activity that looked at the gaps between plans and achievements, between what has worked and what was not working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions)
⇒ Mapping of Climate Change Actions (i.e. activity that helped in identifying good actions taken locally and rating them)
⇒ The need for an increase of climate protection for children
⇒ The way in which an international credit system for carbon emission certificates will work for child protection
⇒ The position of the international climate community on finance climate protection for children abroad (e.g. African children)
⇒ The issue of financial and technical assistance to children affected by climate change
⇒ The percentage of fund that finances climate educational needs of children
⇒ The setting up of climate plans that are children friendly
⇒ The way in which clean air fund is helping children’s health
⇒ Climate protection matters related to children of least developed countries (amongst them some African countries)
⇒ Better climate governance that works for and benefits children’s welfare and well-being
⇒ The political economy of negotiations for child protection against climate-induced poverty
⇒ Green and climate capacity building and education for child protection
⇒ Climate-friendly and children-friendly technologies for poverty relief
⇒ Climate change adaptation and mitigation programmes for children and future generations
⇒ Making clean technology fund (CTF) work for poor children from poor nations
⇒ The equity resulting from converted CTF debt to benefit children from poor nations as well
⇒ The new pledges, if any, for adaptation fund and Least Developed Countries Fund to be mobilised to give a stake to poor children’s needs
⇒ Mobilisation of the climate finance system and architecture to be designed so as to support poor children of poor countries
Many of these points are still pending. That is why there is a need to keep advocating and following the climate talks.
For further details CENFACS’ CPSAC – P. 3 and or any query about this compendium, please contact CENFACS.
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