Today ends the 22nd United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakech, which since November 7 has hosted over 20,000 people including heads of state and government, civil society and private sector actors, government officials and national delegations.
The common goal of the Conference of the Parties (Cop22) was to give a concrete follow up to last year’s achievements: the Paris climate commitments, agreed after very long rounds of unsuccessful negotiations. It is a landmark agreement concluded with the ambitious target of holding global warming below two degrees by the end of the century.
A fundamental goal is to protect the planet from the serious consequences of an excessive rise in temperature, such as rising sea levels or the formation of severe storms and prolonged droughts.
The road, however, appears still to be leading uphill, as noted by the latest annual report issued by UNEP(United Nations Environment Programme) on the gap between the commitments made by individual countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and what they would need to do to hold the temperature to less than a two-degree increase by the end of the century.
The study found that in order to meet the Paris Agreement on climate change, CO2 emissions should be reduced by a further 25%, more than those pledged last year. In addition, the UNEP Emissions Gap report found that 2030 emissions are expected to reach 54 to 56 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. The projected level needed to keep global warming from surpassing 2°C this century is 42 gigatonnes.
The need for urgent action also stems from the fact that 2015 was the warmest year since reliable weather observation exist, that is, 136 years. The trend has continued in 2016, which saw the first six months characterized by even higher temperatures, but the report finds that the harmful emissions are still growing.
Even in the light of these data, the attention paid to the Marrakesh Summit was remarkable, bearing in mind that among the Cop22 climate goals there were no additional measures to reduce air pollution, but rather measures to establish the details of the implementation of the previous Paris Agreement.
The fact that the Cop22 was held in Africa has also offered the opportunity to support the aspirations of the macro-region to promote a trans-regional and continental response to the global challenge of climate change.
The above-mentioned UNEP report stresses that Africa, despite being the only continent not yet industrialized, globally contributing only 4% to the historical accumulation of greenhouse gases through carbon emissions, will nevertheless see those emissions have significant consequences on development and economic growth, with losses ranging between 7 and 15 billion dollars a year.
There is also the fact that climate uncertainty represents a barrier to investment, complicating long-term planning and the design of infrastructure. In addition, natural disasters are capable of significantly affecting commercial performance, which will be particularly affected in countries where agriculture, the sector most vulnerable to climate effects, is the main source of income.
Among the numerous implications for Africa, deriving from the increase in temperature and the change of the reference water models, there is also the risk of the increase in conflicts in Africa, as evidenced by a study published last September in Science.
The twelfth edition of the Global Climate Risk Index, published by the German NGO Germanwatch, also certifies that Africa in 2015 was the continent most affected by extreme weather events.
According to that study, presented during the second day at Cop22 in Marrakech, four out of the ten most impacted countries globally are in Africa: Mozambique (Rank 1), Malawi (Rank 3), Ghana and Madagascar (both Rank 8).
The report also explains that for the continent hosting the UN Climate Change Conference, last year wasone heavily marked by floods, and that the poorest African economies are the most vulnerable to climate risk.
In all this, the African Development Bank (AfDB) is prepared to play its part, as shown by the provisions of the New Deal on the Energy Plan adopted by the Pan African financial institution.
