MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE OF AFRICAN HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE (CAHOSCC)

DATE: 6 February 2022, 08H30 – 10H00 (EAT)

VENUE: African Union Headquarters and virtual (Hybrid)

1. Background

As one of the regions’ most adversely affected by the impacts of climate change, Africa has been advocating for urgent and practical global, regional and national actions and enhanced ambition to combat climate change. African countries have stepped up to the challenge of contributing to addressing the global climate challenge that respects no borders, despite contributing the least to causing this existential crisis.

Significant increases in temperature, sea level rise, shift in weather patterns, and other extremes are already having adverse effects on human health, natural ecosystems, and other dire environmental, social and economic impacts in Africa. The worst is yet to come. This socio-economic situation is being gravely exacerbated by the COVID-19 Pandemic, which has impacted on food security, loss of income and livelihoods and brought with it or compounded political risks. It is the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of society, such as the rural communities, the informal sector, as well as women and children, that are the most disadvantaged.

These consequences pose a formidable challenge to Africa’s socio-economic development prospects which would include among others, the realization of the targets of the Africa’s Agenda 2063; the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), its Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, which entered into force in 2020, sets a global temperature goal – to limit the aggregate global temperature increase to two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels and to strive to reduce this increase to 1,5 degrees. The Paris Agreement further sets global goals on financial resource mobilization for developing countries and a Global Goal on Adaptation. Africa´s response to climate change depends on these three inter-related and mutually re-enforcing goals being advanced with equal determination and commitment by the international community.

The key issues for Africa, in relation to the multilateral negotiations centred on the UNFCCC, include access to enabling means of implementation support and defending Africa’s right to define its own development pathways towards shared multilateral objectives such as global carbon neutrality by 2050, based on national circumstances. The UNFCCC guiding principles of equity and differentiation need to be respected and climate actions have to be located in the context of Sustainable Development and Just Transition. Therefore, CAHOSCC has been playing a strategic role in championing these issues, which have become more important, especially in the lead up to the “African” COP27 to be hosted by the Arab Republic of Egypt in November 2022.

This CAHOSCC meeting takes place soon after the UNFCCC COP26, also known as the Glasgow Climate Conference, convened by the United Kingdom from 31 October – 12 November 2021 after a year-long postponement due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of the Climate Conference in Glasgow was to complete the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) and accelerate climate action at a time when the international community is not on course to meet the goals on mitigation, adaptation and support set out in the Paris Agreement.

The conference resulted in processes being agreed with that should restore the balance between Mitigation, Adaptation and Finance under the Convention and its Paris Agreement. There were strong calls for the world to respond with greater ambition to address the challenge of Climate Change, and Parties adopted the Glasgow Climate Pact, a series of three overarching cover decisions that provide an overall political narrative of the COP26.

         II.         Objectives of the CAHOSCC meeting

In this regard, the objective of the CAHOSCC meeting will be to deliberate on the outcomes of the Glasgow Climate Conference (UNFCCC’s COP26/CMP16/CMP3) and the implications for Africa, as well the outcomes of the meetings of AMCEN in preparation for the COP; receive updates from the African Group of negotiators and from the African Climate Change Initiatives. In addition, the meeting will receive presentations on the African Climate Commissions and from the AU Commission, as well as the recommendations to advance Africa’s Climate Change and Green Recovery agenda, which have been developed over the past two years. The meeting will also deliberate on the draft CAHOSCC Coordinators Report covering the work of the Committee over the past two years as well as a draft Decision on Africa’s Climate Change response to be presented to the AU Assembly.

3. About the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC)

The African Union Assembly in its Thirteenth Ordinary Session in July 2009 approved the Assembly Decision /AU/Dec.257(XIII) Rev.1 on the establishment of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC). Since then, CAHOSCC has been working with the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) and the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN) to advance the Africa Common Position on Climate Change at global fora and negotiations on climate change.