Africa in Post 2012 Climate Change Negotiations: Some Policy Perspectives

Africa in Post 2012 Climate Change

Negotiations: Some Policy Perspectives

Peter A Minang World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) / ASB Partnership

PAN AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE

25-27 JUNE 2009, YAOUNDÉ, CAMEROON

Post 2012 Options: Mitigation

• REDD Plus• Nationally Appropriate Mitigation

Actions (NAMA)- Sectors including REDD Plus and Agriculture

• Clean Development Mechanism

Africa in Current Negotiations (1)• 2 Key sets of African Actors

• COMIFAC: Central African Forest Commission have a submission on REDD.

•Futuristic rather than Historic Baselines

•Favour degradation•Development Adjustment Factor•Support a Fund

Africa in current negotiations (2)• COMESA: Common Market for Eastern and Southern

Africa

• Support broad AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses) Perspective

• Inclusion of agriculture = better opportunities for Adaptation benefits and more impact on livelihoods

• Landscape perspective that includes Forest Core, Forest Frontier and Agriculture / Forest mosaics

• Favour a combination of Market and Non-market mechanisms

• Small land holders be strongly considered• AFRICA BIOCARBON INITIATIVE

AMCEN on Major issues• Supports Adaptation as No. 1 Issue• Calls for firm and effective emission reduction

targets• Supports fund-based mechanisms• Supports REDD• Supports inclusion of Agriculture and

Agroforestry in CDM• Support CDM Reform

BUT “devil is always in the detail”

Message No. 1:

•Africa should support a REDD Plus Mechanism

in Copenhagen

What is REDD?• Forests store vast amounts of carbon, therefore

preventing deforestation and degradation of forests = keeping carbon = mitigation of climate change

• Voluntary International System to motivate forest management in developing countries

• Countries that are willing and able to reduce Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation are compensated

What are the stakes for Africa?• Carbon Finance can

provide crucial funding for sustainable forest management and poverty alleviation in Africa

• Carbon markets worth about US$118 Billion and could triple with REDD

• E.g. RIL in Cameroon could make USD 12 Million ( at price $ 12 / tc; cost of $20 / tc on 150000 ha)- Brunner 2001

Gibbs and Brown (2007)

Message No. 2

•Africa should support progressive extension of

REDD Plus to include Agriculture, Agroforestry

and Trees in the Landscape

Why Agriculture and other land uses?• Better opportunities for Africa

• Smallholders’ land activities (agric +) are largely responsible for deforestation and forest degradation in Africa

• Tenure and ownership less controversial in small farm / land holdings than forest areas

• Agric and Other land uses would potentially yield more co-benefits than REDD

• C Markets = 118 US$ Billion while Adaptation Fund = <200 Millions

Intensive arableagriculture

Forest CoreAreas

Forest FrontierAreas

Agriculture –ForestMosaicAreas

Africa BioCarbon Initiative: Interactions between land uses and carbon pools

Mitigation Potential of Agriculture in Africa

• AFOLU 1004 Mt CO2-eq/yr until 2030

3) Conservation Agriculture with Faidherbia albida

60 years of research shows on each hectare, mature trees supply the equivalent of 300kg of complete fertiliser and

250kg of lime. This can sustain a maize yield of 4 tons/ha.

Faidherbia is indigenous in many African countries

3) CO-BENEFITS- Conservation Agriculture benefits (2008/9 Trials)

• At recommended spacing of 10m x 10m – 100 trees per hectare

2007/8 Faidherbia Trial Results

Maize yield - zero fertiliser

Tons/ha ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

With Faidherbia 4.1

Without Faidherbia 1.3 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Data averaged from 15 trials

Message No. 3

•Africa should advocate for further Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Reforms

How is Africa doing on CDM • CDM allows Afforestation and reforestation projects

from developing countries in the carbon market

• Africa’s participation in Clean Development Mechanism = Poor – Less than 4% of Projects

• Only four out 40 forestry projects in the CDM pipeline (Mali, Tanzania, DRC, Uganda) as at 09/08

• 1 Energy Project now in Tanzania (others in South Africa and North Africa)

• Post 2012 CDM Scenario unclear

Challenges Demand side• Complicated rules (additionality, registration,

MRV)• Costs- upto 200 000 USD per project (15 k for

consultant to review project)• Price differential (EU-ETS = 16 $ t C and

Other developing countries = 4tC)• Contracts under international law is arbitrated

in international courts- Costs, language etc.

Message No. 4

•Africa should advocate for VOLUNTARY Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) for Sub-Saharan Africa

Message No. 5

•Africa should continue advocating for appropriate combinations of funds and markets in the post 2012 financial mechanisms

Fund vs Market: What Motivations• Adaptation Fund =

300 Million USD to date

• Vs

• 1Billion dollars in 2 years +

• Carbon Market = 118 Billion in 2008

Option 1: Funds only means we may never get as much

Option 2: Markets have more money, but we may have to fight harder for better and fairer rules- Auctions

Can also raise adaptation money from mitigation

Message No. 6

•Africa must maintain adaptation as top priority and promote actions that contribute to both adaptation and mitigation

What are the stakes for Africa? (3)- Adaptation

• Africa is most vulnerable continent

• Costs of strong and urgent action on climate change will be less than the costs thereby avoided of the impacts of climate change under business as usual (Stern 2006)

How is Africa doing on Climate Forestry? - Adaptation

• About 24 African Countries have prepared National Adaptation Plans of Action. Most of which has been done driven

• Few of these adaptation plans articulate the role of SFM in climate change adaptation

• A collection of small projects are ongoing at sub-national level in various countries- few in forestry – e.g. CIFOR in Central and West Africa

Adaptation Finance / Capacity / Technology Transfer

• Only about 300 Million dollars from CDM money, not donors

• Governance issues (developing countries need a greater say)

• Is G77 and China the best forum for adaptation finance?

Message No. 7

•African countries must improve the numbers, quality of delegations and strengthen climate change negotiation strategies

How to Improve Negotiations?

• Increase number of negotiators (only one or two now compared to 50 for US and 10s for European delegations)

• Increase number of disciplines represented in delegations (multi-disciplinary teams)

• Improve sceintific input and analysis into African country positions (what if scenarios for various decisions)

• Language support especially for Francophone, Lusophone Africa)

Thank YouMerci

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