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The core business of climate negotiations officially opened today, Monday 3 December, in the heart of the Silesia region of southern Poland. At the Katowice Conference Centre, more than 20,000 people all over the world are expected to gather to push for effective climate deal

Symbolically, the  climate summit was officially launched on 2 December by Frank Bainimarama, former Prime Minister of Fiji and Chair of COP23, MichałKurtyka, Secretary of State in the Polish Ministry of Energy and Chair-Designate of COP24, and Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres' remarks at the opening ceremony of the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland.

Excellencies,

Distinguished delegates,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to COP 24.

I thank President Duda, Minister Kowalczyk and COP President Designate Mijal Kurtyka for their warm welcome.

We are in trouble. We are in deep trouble with climate change.

Climate change is running faster than we are and we must catch up sooner rather than later before it is too late....

Africa will not successfully implement the sustainable development agenda and it’s 50-year development plan, Agenda 2063, if urgent climate actions are not taken now, Mr. James Murombedzi, Officer in Charge of the Economic Commission for Africa’s African Climate Policy Center (ACPC), said Monday.

Speaking ahead of the 7th Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA7), which opens in Nairobi on Wednesday, Mr. Murombedzi said the continent needs to urgently adopt climate resilient development pathways if it is to survive the adverse impacts of climate change.

The CCDA-VII is being organized in partnership with the Kenyan government and the PanAfrican Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). 

Africa needs to prepare and speak with one voice when it goes to COP 24 in Katowice, Poland, in December, Kenya’s Environment and Forestry Minister, Keriako Tobiko said Wednesday at the opening of the Seventh Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA – VII) conference in Nairobi.

Speaking on behalf of President Uhuru Kenyatta, the Minister said climate change was a matter of life and death for Africa hence the need for its leaders to speak with a strong unified voice and be heard whenparticipating in multilateral climate negotiations and other global issues.

The 7th Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa opened in Nairobi Wednesday, October 10 with the African Union Commission (AUC), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) pledging to continue working together to make Africa’s development sustainable, inclusive and climate-resilient.

Speakers from the pan-African institutions said they will continue to work with member states, partners and stakeholders in their efforts to influence, strengthen and enable the transition to climate-resilient development in Africa through responsive policies, plans and programmes focusing on building transformed economies and healthy ecosystems on the continent.

Panelists and delegates agreed knowing the interconnectedness of issues related to water (SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation), food security (SDG 2: Zero hunger), and energy (SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy), for instance, to the NDCs and Agenda 2063, was essential to manage the continent’s environmental resources in an integrated way.

“Taking into account the interdependencies and interrelatedness of environmental resources, it is essential that we have efficient and cost-effective strategies through the nexus approach for achieving the SDGs and Africa’s Agenda 2063, the Africa we want, especially given the new dire IPCC climate,” said Economic Commission for Africa’s Nassirou Ba.

Mr. Ba, an Economic Affairs Officer with the ECA, and fellow panelists in a session discussing the nexus, agreed political will is what Africa needs if it is to achieve sustainable and equitable development and ensure it leaves no one behind as espoused by the landmark Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

Nairobi — Africa's top environmental journalists were honoured last night at a glitzy ceremony at the ongoing Seventh Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA - VII) conference in Nairobi.

The overall winner of the African Climate Change and Environmental Reporting (ACCER) Awards was Ethiopian Demis Mekuriyaw, who was praised by the judges for outstanding coverage of environmental issues in his country.

"Mekuriyaw is a highly organized and efficient journalist, whose thorough and precise approach to projects has yielded excellent results. He went out of his way on a shoe-string budget to report on climate change and environmental issues affecting his country," the judges said.

Devolved governance is playing a crucial role in helping Kenya come up with ways to mitigate effects of climate change at community level, says Mr. Keriako Tobiko, the country’s Environment and Forestry Cabinet Secretary.

In a speech presented during the country’s first National Conference on Climate Governance in Nairobi, Mr. Tobiko said five counties in Kenya were successfully applying a model of devolved climate finance and making a huge difference on the ground.

The County Climate Change Fund mechanism integrates climate risk and empowers poor and vulnerable communities in the face of climate change. The counties have put in place structures and processes to enable them to access and manage climate finance in transparent and accountable manner