African ministers meet UN Secretary General at COP19 as negotiations kick-off

Warsaw, Poland 19 November 2013 (ECA) - African environment ministers on Tuesday participated in a meeting of the G77 and China with the Secretary General of the UN , Mr. Bank Ki Moon on the sidelines of the 19th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( COP19 ) underway in Warsaw, Poland since 11 November 2013.

A number of African experts also participated in audience whose agenda was not made public. Several of the experts present at the audience said they had had to cancel their participation in their regular morning meetings on Tuesday to accompany their respective ministers in the unscheduled encounter.

Sources close to the meeting could only say that it is important to have a discussion on the African common position on climate change with the UN Secretary General and the challenges the continent faces in the global phenomenon.

For one member of the African Group of Negotiators, two key documents presented at an informal consultation last Sunday by the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) must have been discussed by Mr. Ban Ki-Moon and his guests during Tuesday’s audience. One of them is a declaration adopted at the ministers’ conference last October in Gaborone, Botswana.

The documents call on the ministers to focus on current delays in the implementation of resolutions that insist on financial payments to those African that pollute virtually nothing but which continue to pay dearly for pollution.
Issues relating to loss or damage , financing, technology transfer and  well as some clarification on the agenda of the climate change meeting planned for September 2014 , are among other concerns that African experts had urged ministers to discuss with the UN Secretary General.

One of the ambitions of COP19 has been to mark a decisive turning point in climate negotiations by reestablishing a minimum level of confidence and trust among the some 200 Parties and several organizations that have been negotiating for nearly two decades. African countries feel an increasing sense of frustration as Annex 1 or developed countries have persistently failed to honour their promises on financial compensation for the brunt African countries bear for climate change impacts.

Of recent, questions have come from some quarters as to the usefulness of Africa’s continued presence at these talks, from which some say they have had rather little to show. A major expectation from COP19 is the laying of foundation for the groundwork of a new global agreement that will go into force in 2015, through working very closely with the presidents of the next COPs.  

As far as COP organizers are concerned, a comprehensive solution will only be effective if the issues arising from the process are supported and legitimized by all States or Parties; and only when all parties effectively implement actions that aim to solve the problems that climate change poses to all regions of the world.

The UN Economic Commission for Africa provides technical support to African countries, in the areas of research, negotiations, communication as well as in policy formulation.

Posted by ECA