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Delegates gathered against an ominous backdrop of multiple crises: energy, cost of living, indebtedness, nature loss, and geopolitical tensions among major powers. But the need to act in the face of the climate crisis has never been clearer. Global average temperature rise is already 1.1°C. People around the world are experiencing the effects of climate change, from heatwaves and droughts to floods and superstorms. Only the wealthiest countries can (so far) cope. As Sherry Rehman, Minister of Climate Change, Pakistan, implored “Vulnerability shouldn’t be a death sentence.”
The need to protect the most vulnerable led to a historic decision at the Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Change Conference, after a hard political bargain was struck across significant areas of climate action. For the first time, countries agreed to recognize the need for finance to respond to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, and quickly established a fund and the necessary funding arrangements, with the details to be worked out over the coming year.
Other key elements of this package were the work programmes on urgently scaling up mitigation ambition and the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). On mitigation, developed and climate-vulnerable countries pushed for a strong outcome to ramp up efforts to reduce emissions before 2030, calling this “the critical decade.” In the end, countries agreed to a process that will explore topics, which are to be decided, and identify opportunities and gaps to reduce emissions. Several countries expressed some worry that the mitigation outcome may not be enough to “keep 1.5°C alive.”
On the GGA, countries were more pleased with the outcome. Parties agreed to a long-term, structured effort that will help countries to collectively achieve the global adaptation goal. This framework will also review progress towards its achievement. Given the context-specific nature of adaptation, that countries will have to adapt to different climate impacts, this framework will generate information that can help to enable and capture progress. It will be reviewed before the second Global Stocktake in 2028.
Parties also adopted two overarching cover decisions, together called the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan. Both decisions address science, energy, mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, finance, and pathways to a just transition. Some highlights include:
Other key outcomes from the meeting include:
The meeting also featured the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Summit, where over 100 Heads of State and Government attended. By the end of the meeting, which concluded on 20 November, more than 39 hours after the scheduled close, parties had adopted 60 decisions.
The Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Change Conference convened in Egypt from 6-20 November 2022. The Conference included the:
In total, 33,449 people attended, including 16,118 delegates from parties, 13,981 observers, and 3,350 members of the media.
A Brief History of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement
The international political response to climate change began with the 1992 adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which sets out the basic legal framework and principles for international climate change cooperation with the aim of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The Convention, which entered into force on 21 March 1994, has 198 parties.
To boost the effectiveness of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in December 1997. It commits industrialized countries and countries in transition to a market economy to achieve quantified emissions reduction targets for a basket of six GHGs. The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on 16 February 2005 and has 192 parties. Its first commitment period took place from 2008 to 2012. The 2012 Doha Amendment established the second commitment period from 2013 to 2020. To date, 148 parties have ratified the Doha Amendment.
In December 2015, parties adopted the Paris Agreement. Under the terms of the Agreement, all countries will submit NDCs and review the aggregate progress on mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation every five years through a Global Stocktake (GST). The Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016, and has 194 parties.
Recent Key Turning Points
Paris: The 2015 UN Climate Change Conference convened in Paris, France, culminating with the adoption of the Paris Agreement on 12 December. The Agreement includes the goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. It also aims to increase parties’ ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and make financial flows consistent with a pathway towards low-GHG emissions and climate-resilient development. The Agreement should be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.
Under the Paris Agreement, each party shall communicate, at five-year intervals, successively more ambitious NDCs. Under the common time frames decision adopted in 2021 in Glasgow, each NDC will last ten years, but will still be updated every five years. The Paris Agreement also includes a transparency framework and a process known as the GST. Beginning in 2023, parties will convene this process at five-year intervals to review collective progress on mitigation, adaptation, and means of implementation. The Agreement also includes provisions on adaptation, finance, technology, loss and damage, and compliance.
When adopting the Paris Agreement, parties launched the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) to develop the Agreement’s operational details. Parties also agreed on the need to mobilize stronger and more ambitious climate action by all parties and non-party stakeholders to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals. Several non-party stakeholders made unilateral mitigation pledges in Paris, with more than 10,000 registered actions.
Marrakech: The UN Climate Change Conference in Marrakech took place from 7-18 November 2016 and included the first meeting of the CMA. Parties adopted several decisions related to the PAWP, including: work should conclude by 2018; the terms of reference for the Paris Committee on Capacity-building; and initiating a process to identify the information to be provided in accordance with Paris Agreement Article 9.5 (ex ante biennial finance communications by developed countries). Other decisions included approving the five-year workplan of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (WIM), enhancing the Technology Mechanism, and continuing and enhancing the Lima work programme on gender.
Fiji/Bonn: The Fiji/Bonn Climate Change Conference convened from 6-17 November 2017 in Bonn, Germany, under the COP Presidency of Fiji. The COP launched the Talanoa Dialogue, a facilitative dialogue to take stock of collective progress towards the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals. The COP also established the “Fiji Momentum for Implementation,” a decision giving prominence to pre-2020 implementation and ambition. Parties also provided guidance on the completion of the PAWP and decided that the Adaptation Fund shall serve the Paris Agreement, subject to decisions to be taken by CMA 1-3. Parties also further developed, or gave guidance to, the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, the WIM Executive Committee (ExCom), the Standing Committee on Finance, and the Adaptation Fund.
Katowice: The Katowice Climate Change Conference convened from 2-14 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland, concluding a busy year that featured an additional negotiation session to advance work on the PAWP. Parties adopted the Katowice Climate Package, which finalized nearly all of the PAWP, including decisions to facilitate common interpretation and implementation of the Paris Agreement on the mitigation section of NDCs, adaptation communications, transparency framework, GST, and financial transparency, among others. Work on cooperative implementation, under Article 6 of the Agreement, was not concluded, and parties agreed to conclude this work in 2019. The COP was unable to agree on whether to “welcome” or “note” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5°C of Global Warming.
Chile/Madrid: The Chile/Madrid Climate Change Conference convened from 2-17 December 2019 in Madrid, under the COP Presidency of Chile. Decisions were adopted on the review of the WIM and some finance-related issues, such as guidance to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Green Climate Fund (GCF). Parties also adopted the Chile/Madrid Time for Action. On many other issues, notably Article 6 and long-term finance, countries could not reach an agreement.
Intersessional Meetings: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the normal meeting cycle in 2020. Online sessions were held in June and November 2020 to hear updates from the constituted bodies and hold mandated events. The Climate Ambition Summit in December 2020 served as a platform for countries to put forward new NDCs and net zero pledges. In June 2021, the Subsidiary Bodies met online for informal consultations. No decisions were taken during this period due to concerns about inclusivity. Views were captured in informal notes prepared by the Chairs.
Glasgow: The Glasgow Climate Change Conference convened from 31 October – 12 November 2021 and marked the return to formal negotiations after the COVID-19 pandemic-related interruption. Parties finalized the Paris Agreement rulebook, adopting guidelines, rules, and a work programme on Article 6, and agreeing on the format of reporting under the enhanced transparency framework. Parties adopted the Glasgow Climate Pact, a series of three overarching cover decisions which, for the first time, included a reference to phasing down unabated coal power and phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. They also agreed to work programmes on a global goal for adaptation, and on urgently scaling up mitigation; created the Glasgow Dialogue on loss and damage; established a process towards defining a new collective quantified goal on climate finance; and launched an annual dialogue on ocean-based climate action.
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The Climate Chance Summit Africa 2023 will bring together on the 23rd, 24th and 2th of October 2023 at the Palais des Congrès in Yaounde 1,500 African actors from the "climate community": high-level personalities, experts, actors in the field, representatives of local governments, businesses and organised civil society.
Celebrations for World Environment Day 2023 kicked off in host-country Cote d’Ivoire, as millions of people prepare for similar activities across the world. Venues across the capital city, Abidjan – from its historic lagoon to its first modern art museum - shone the spotlight on this year’s theme #Beat Plastic Pollution.
Congo Basin Carbon brings together information on various research and education projects in the Yangambi and Luki MAB Reserves in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through this website we hope to strengthen research networks and improve project visibility, specifically for carbon research. Tropical rainforests such as the forests of the Congo Basin comprise nearly half of the world’s vegetation carbon. Intact tropical forests represent a carbon sink at a level that is higher than other vegetation types. The issues of carbon stocks, sinks and sources in tropical forests are therefore a central topic in international policy debates on climate changes.
At last year’s United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26), 141 leaders committed to halt and reverse forest loss and degradation by 2030. Forests, particularly tropical ones, are known to play a crucial role in removing carbon from the atmosphere, partially offsetting the effect of greenhouse gas emissions. This is a highly valuable service to the global climate, meaning the world should be willing to pay to ensure it happens. In this policy note, we look at just how valuable that service is, and put that in the context of aid efforts to protect forests.
During the process of photosynthesis, trees naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Rainforests act as important 'carbon sinks' stemming global heating. The Congo rainforest is the planet’s most important “lung,” new data has revealed. The world’s rainforests absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, slowing down global warming.
The world is getting a better understanding of just how important forests are in the global fight against climate change. New research, published in Nature Climate Change and available on Global Forest Watch, found that the world’s forests sequestered about twice as much carbon dioxide as they emitted between 2001 and 2019. In other words, forests provide a “carbon sink” that absorbs a net 7.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 per year, 1.5 times more carbon than the United States emits annually.
This brief describes the first efforts to integrate agroforestry with charcoal production in the Yangambi tropical forest landscape. Activities resulted in both increased food crop production and reforestation, as well as the establishment of producer-led local associations and greater collaboration between communities and local authorities.
The GEF Secretariat prepared this document to summarize the GEF’s potential role in a financial mechanism for the internationally legally binding instrument under negotiation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). The document is prepared to help inform deliberations. It also includes questions and answers to key issues raised thus far by countries. GEF’s role as Convention Financial Mechanism: The GEF serves as a/the financial mechanism for five Conventions, namely the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Minamata Convention on Mercury, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Chemicals, UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
On May 8, 2023, in the BOUN'S Hotel conference, in Yaoundé, a workshop was held to launch the process of drawing up the Cameroon Country Investment Plan (CIP) on the nexus of transboundary transhumance, protected areas, peace and security, and development. Please download the final communiqué of the workshop...
Geneva and Yaoundé, 26 May 2023. The Ministry of Economy, Planning and Land Planning of Cameroon (MINEPAT) and CAFI are launching two Calls for Expressions of Interest today to all relevant implementing organisations concerned, representing a maximum of 60 million US$.
WWF is supporting the Government of Cameroon in her effort to restore more than 12 million hectares of degraded landscapes in the country. In 2017, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife committed, on behalf of the Government of Cameroon, to restore 12,062,768 ha of degraded landscapes under AFR100 and the Bonn Challenge by 2030. Of these, 80% are in the three northern regions of Adamaoua, North and Far North; with the remainder in the high plateau, Centre region, vast forest and coastal areas (Mangroves).
As part of our ongoing commitment to promoting transparent and accountable governance of climate and environmental funds, we are pleased to invite you to two upcoming online sessions. These sessions will offer valuable insights, strategies, and best practices for combating corruption, and reinforce our collective efforts to create a more sustainable future. We hope you will join us for these important discussions.
International Day for Biological Diversity, celebrated each year on 22 May, is an opportunity to not only acknowledge the crucial role healthy biodiversity plays in the survival of the planet but also to assess the nature crisis. With the theme ‘From Agreement to Action: Build Back Biodiversity,’ this year’s Day follows the historic adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by 196 nations at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Montreal, Canada, in December 2022.
Bukavu, May 10, 2023 – The Kahuzi-Biega National Park (PNKB) is deeply saddened to announce the death of its ecoguard Alain Lukinga, born in Kakongya on June 12, 1989, who sacrificed his life for the protection of the PNKB in an armed clash in Cibumbiro between the villages of Kajeje and Lukananda in the Mudaka groupement, in Kabare territory in South Kivu.
From April 19 to 20, 2023 a workshop for the development of a national investment plan for Nigeria on transhumance and related topics was held in Abuja, NIGERIA. This workshop, funded by the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) Facilitation of the Federal Republic of Germany, aimed to...
The SWM Programme is the first international initiative to tackle the wild meat challenge by addressing both wildlife conservation and food security. It is an initiative from the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), funded by the European Union with co-funding from the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM) and the French Development Agency (AFD).
In a bid to boost indigenous people and local communities’ (IPLC) engagement in wildlife protection around Lobéké National Park in Southeast Cameroon, Lobéké Management has signed social pacts with 34 Bantu and Baka communities in the Park. Thirty-four social pacts were signed between the communities and the Lobeke Management in December 2022, with each pact corresponding to a community project worth FCFA 300,000.
This report highlights the impacts of direct as well as indirect deforestation through mining. It presents for the first time ever the deforestation embodied in the consumption of products and showcases the extensive deforestation potential that artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) can have on forest ecosystems.
A new toll road in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province is under construction to improve access to the interior of Borneo, including to the nation’s new capital city, Nusantara. Construction of the road, however, poses immediate environmental risks, as the route cuts through a forested area with high conservation value that connects the Sungai Wain protected forest, coastal mangroves, and Balikpapan Bay. Prior to road construction, the integrated forest and coastal ecosystem supported populations of orangutans, sun bears, proboscis monkeys and Irrawaddy dolphins. Conservationists say the construction of this toll road belies the Indonesian government’s claims that the development of the new capital will be green and sustainable.
The tobacco industry causes a fifth of Zimbabwe’s forest loss. What is being done to minimise this? At the beginning of this century, the Zimbabwean government embarked on an audacious land reform programme, ostensibly to correct the injustices suffered by local people when the land was colonised. The controversial programme saw an estimated 170,000 black Zimbabwean families – mostly small-scale farmers – taking over agricultural production from about 3,000 white-owned farms.
SAN MARTÍN, Peru (AP) — The Cordillera Azul National Park on the eastern flank of the Peruvian Andes takes in a sweep of Amazon rainforest, mountains and waterfalls in a territory about the size of Connecticut, so precious that tens of millions of dollars in carbon credits have been sold in a program that supporters said would protect its trees.
To fight climate change and biodiversity loss, the new law obliges companies to ensure products sold in the EU have not led to deforestation and forest degradation. While no country or commodity will be banned, companies will only be allowed to sell products in the EU if the supplier of the product has issued a so-called “due diligence” statement confirming that the product does not come from deforested land or has led to forest degradation, including of irreplaceable primary forests, after 31 December 2020.
A number of reports have found that an Indonesian government program to establish large-scale agricultural plantations across the country has led to deforestation. More than 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of forests, including carbon-rich peatlands, have been cleared in Central Kalimantan province for the so-called food estate program, according to a spatial analysis by the NGO Pantau Gambut. Last year, the NGO Kaoem Telapak detected 100 hectares (250 acres) of deforestation in food estate areas in North Sumatra. Villagers whose lands have been included in the program have also reported an increase in the severity of floods since their forests were cleared to make way for the food estates.
Press release 3 May 2023 | The German government will make two billion euros available for the Green Climate Fund (GCF). German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the commitment at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin today. This makes Germany the first major donor to announce its contribution for the upcoming pledging conference for the Green Climate Fund. The conference will take place in Bonn on 5 October and will be chaired by Development Minister Svenja Schulze. The Green Climate Fund is one of the largest climate action funds of the world. The creation of the fund was an important objective of the developing countries, which have an equal say in how funds are spent on climate mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries.
With GEF and LDCF support, Nespresso, IUCN, and TechnoServe are working together to promote more sustainable and resilient coffee farming practices in South Kivu. Antoinette Shabanyere’s 1,800-tree coffee farm in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is at the forefront of efforts by local communities to adapt to climate change.
The Second Consultation Meeting (CM-2) for GCF’s second replenishment (GCF-2) was held on 27-28 April. Hosted by GCF and moderated by Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, the replenishment facilitator, the two-day virtual meeting convened over 100 current and prospective contributors where they received updates on GCF and discussed matters related to the replenishment process.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Country Representative, Suze Percy-Filippini is impressed with the progress made by the department of Forestry in the implementation of the Forest Farm Facility –FFF Program in the Choma District of Southern Province.
This case study forms part of a series of six case studies on mobilizing internal finance within Forest and Farm Producer Organization (FFPOs) prepared by forest and farm FFPOs for the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF). It describes the Jwa Ngwaane Community Cooperative Credit Union, established by the Kassena Nankana Baobab Cooperative Union (KANBAOCU) through the mobilization of 96 Village Savings and Loans Associations.
The African Regional Exchange, a three-day workshop co-organized with CIFOR-ICRAF, the Kenya Forestry Research Institute and the Kenya Forest Service, brought together farmers, bankers, governments, and development partners from across Africa to discuss ways to ensure smallholder farmers have access to the finance they need to improve and scale up sustainable forest and farm management practices.
This agrobiodiversity case study (No.6) from Zambia is the sixth of six case studies prepared by forest and farm producer organisations (FFPOs) for the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF). It describes the actions of the Choma District Tree Nursery and Growers Association (CDTNA). CDTNA represents 111 members, either individual nursery growers or collective enterprises that furnish diverse tree seedlings for forest and agroforestry restoration projects across Southern Zambia.
Oyéoussi Charles Balogoun is the Africa Representative of the NGO Panel under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The Civil Society Panel (CSO Panel) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) represents nearly 500 organisations accredited to the Convention. Charles Balogoun is also the Global President and Chairman of the Board of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Afrique Espérance. He answers ENVIRONNEMENTALES’s questions on the state of desertification in Africa.
A common vision of sustainable finance is being developed in Central Africa. The project is at the heart of an international forum scheduled for 8 and 9 May 2023 in Douala, Cameroon, under the theme « Trajectories towards sustainable finance ». An initiative of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Sustainable Banking and Finance Network (SBFN).
Delegates to the Sixth Meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development emphasized the need for forward-looking, high-impact initiatives involving all relevant actors, to enable the structural transformations Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) needs to “resume and sustain the path to 2030.”
Kenya loses 2–2.4 percent of its gross domestic product annually due to the effects of climate change, such as drought and floods according to according to a 2018 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics study. Droughts alone cost the country 8 percent of GDP every five years. Arid and semi-arid rangelands (ASALs) occupy over 80 percent of Kenya’s landscape, and are home to about 36 percent of the total human population, and seventy per cent of the nation’s livestock and 90% of wildlife. Livestock's contributions account for 80 percent of household incomes in arid lands, and 65 percent in semi-arid lands.
Sitting at the forefront of the climate crisis, forest and farm producer organizations (FFPOs) have a vital role in supporting smallholder resilience and attaining climate change and biodiversity goals. Together, their members have a transformative potential to achieve sustainable development and respond to climate change at scale.