Environmental Affairs Intern

Economic Commission for Africa

The African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is a centre for knowledge generation and delivery to strengthen, influence and enable the transition to climate-resilient, inclusive, and sustainable development through responsive policies, plans and programmes towards transformed economies, healthy ecosystems, and human wellbeing. ACPC was established in 2008 at the First Joint Annual Meetings of the African Union (AU) Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (COM) and became operational in 2010 with the dual mandate to provide climate policy guidance to member countries and to serve as the secretariat of the Climate for Development in Africa (ClimDev-Africa) programme. The ACPC was created with the intention of mainstreaming climate change into the work of ECA to support Africa countries and to enable African countries build economies that are climate resilient because, Africa’s core economic sectors are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and change. Taking agriculture as an example, the sector contributes to around 30 per cent of GDP and employs up to 80 per cent of the population but the sector is highly vulnerable to rainfall variability and shifting seasons, and future projection are not promising. More efforts are needed to cap the GHG and transitioning to low carbon development. According to the Global Stoke Take reports, the current national commitments fall short by 20.3 to 23.9 gigatons of CO2 equivalent compared to the levels required to limit warming to 1.5 °C by 2030. To achieve the Paris Agreement targets, the GHG emissions must be cut by 40% by 2030 and by 60% by 2035 from the 2019 levels, and ultimately reach the net zero CO2. Therefore, bold transformative changes across all sectors are needed increase mitigation efforts by scaling up renewable energy investments while phasing out fossil fuels, and curtailing deforestation to curb global warming. Notwithstanding enhanced mitigation efforts, strengthening adaptation measures are needed to cope with intensifying climate impacts, particularly for communities least equipped to handle them. These impacts escalate with each fraction of a degree of global warming, with some effects becoming irreversible if temperatures rise beyond 1.5°C. Accordingly, the GST invited organizations in a position to provide capacity-building support in the preparation and communication of the next NDCs. In particular, African countries will require significant support on various aspects of NDC preparation and implementation.