Africa Union develops common position for climate change summit

The conference on climate change and development in Africa was held for the 8th time at the African Union from August 28 to 30, 2019 in a bid to develop a common African position and concern about the upcoming UN climate action summit during September 23, 2019 in New York.
It will attract policy makers, representatives from civil society organizations academia and development partners from the member states of the African Union (AU) to attend the eighth Conference on Climate Change and Development with the theme: ‘Stepping up climate action for a resilient Africa – a race we can and must win’.
Many African countries have submitted ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions to Climate Action – NDCs – that shows their strong commitments to tackle climate change, said Frehiwot Woldehanna, State Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy.
He also underscored Ethiopia’s effort for clean energy and a pioneer country to submit its NDC and sign the Paris Agreement in addition to co chairing one of the nine action areas, which is the energy transition with Denmark.
Africa contributes the least to global emissions but is already suffering the most adverse impacts from climate change. The Continent contributes under 6 percent of carbon emissions, which is only 0.8 tons per year, which is below the global mean of 5 tons. However the continent suffers more.
To slow down the impact of climate change, identifying the need for an estimated USD 3.5 – 4 trillion of investment by 2030 To support African countries adapt to climate change, AfDB has committed to ensuring that at least 40 percent of its project approvals are tagged as climate finance by 2020, with equal proportions for adaptation and mitigation. The bank also seeks to mainstream climate change and green growth initiatives into all investments by next year.