Climate change huge challenge for Africa: minister

Wangui Kanina, Reuters 29 May 09;

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The challenges facing Africa to fight climate change are enormous and costs are huge though hard to quantify, South Africa's environment minister said on Friday.

Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said her peers from more than 30 African countries, meeting in Nairobi, had agreed a joint position on climate change, to be presented at negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

"Increased support to Africa should be based on priorities which include adaptation, capacity building, financing and technology development and transfer," she told a news conference.

The world's poorest continent is expected to be hardest hit by climate change, despite having the lowest emissions of greenhouse gases.

According to the United Nations, between 250 and 750 million people in Africa will face water shortages by 2020, while in some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent by 2020.

"Most of the work remains to be done, particularly with the cost of adaptation in Africa estimated between $1 billion to $50 billion per year," Sonjica said.

Sonjica, who is the president of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, urged rich countries not to attach conditions on assistance given to developing countries.

"African governments must commit certain amounts from their budget, but you cannot commit what you don't have. I get a sense that there is a push for us to over-commit," she said.

COSTS

The United Nations has estimated the costs of adapting to rising seas in Africa could amount to at least 5-to-10 percent of gross domestic product toward the end of this century.

It also projects an increase of 5-to-8 percent of arid and semi-arid lands in Africa by 2080.

Africa advocates expansion of categories so that countries can benefit from carbon credits, and other international incentives to include agriculture and forest management.

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said bigger countries such as China and Korea had won more funds than Africa from rich nations to help cut greenhouse gases.

Africa has received relatively little aid because the projects available in the continent were much smaller, he told a news conference.

"Because many economies in Africa are very small, not a lot can be done to reduce emissions gases, so reducing emissions in Africa is not as big an opportunity as it is in Asian countries," he said.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

African ministers take stand on climate change
Yahoo News 29 May 09;

NAIROBI (AFP) – African environment ministers on Friday demanded clear commitment from industrialised countries to fund projects to counter the effects of global warming.

They lamented lack of commitment by developed states to fund projects that will help Africa, the world's lowest polluter, to cope with the effects of climate change.

"There is no commitment that has been made to fund adapation and there are still conditionalities... being pegged," South Africa's Environemnt Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said.

"If anything we would have wanted a stronger leadership from the developed world and I am not sure if it's there. I haven't seen it yet," said Sonjika who heads the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment.

The ministers who gathered in Nairobi also agreed on a common stand on climate change to be presented at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen in December.

The agreement calls for more finances and clean energy technology transfer as well as significant carbon emission cuts by developed countries.

The ministers want industrialised nations to cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 below the 1990 levels.

They also urged the G8 countries to implement a recommendation to establish a regional centre for climate change in Africa.

"Africa's environment ministers have today signaled their resolve to be part of the solution to the climate change challenge by forging a unified position," said Achim Steiner, the UN Environment Programme chief.

"It is now time for other continents and countries, especially the developed economies, to now seriously shoulder theirs."

French Minister of Environment Jean-Louis Borloo, who attended, pledged Europe's total support for Africa, warning against using the global financial crisis to delay action.

"Europe will do it. We know our American friends started late... but we have to stick to our 25 to 40 percent reduction.

"The (global) crisis should not be used as pretext by industrialised countries to delay," he told AFP.

The African Union commisioner for agriculture Rhoda Tumussime said the contintent has "moral right to demand for compensation from those countries that contribute most of the problem to global warming.

"It is grossly unfair for Africa to suffer from a problem for which it has contributed very minimally," she said.

Kenya's Environment Minister John Michuki said: "African should not be the first to pay the price."

According to UNEP's statistics, between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa may face water shortages by 2020.

It also estimates that up to 50 billion dollars would be needed every year to cope with the effects of climate change in Africa.