Africa has faced significant challenges due to the unprecedented impacts of climate change, including cyclones, droughts, floods, and heat waves deeming climate resilience a hurdle. These crises have intensified calls from climate negotiators, activists, stakeholders, and lobbyists for the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund. Since its endorsement at COP28, the Loss and Damage Fund has generated heightened expectations among vulnerable communities that urgently need support to build resilience against these climate shocks.
The African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN), a technical body within the three-tier African negotiating structure, plays a key role in technical negotiations during the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) and intersessional negotiations on climate change. The AGN recently convened in Nairobi to deliberate on a unified African position that will ensure results are attained to meet the reality faced in the continent.
The AGN has proven to be a significant voice in shaping the international climate regime under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and has consistently advocated for the best possible outcomes for the people of Africa.
During the convention, negotiators underscored the critical importance of adaptation and loss and damage for Africa, as evidenced by the worsening climate impacts. COP29 is seen as a pivotal opportunity to prioritize these issues and secure the necessary financial and technical assistance to close the adaptation finance gap.
AGN Chair and Kenya’s Climate Envoy, Ali Mohamed, emphasized that Africa’s development challenges—including high poverty levels, limited access to energy, clean water, food security, and primary healthcare, all exacerbated by a debt crisis—are being compounded by climate change.
Mr. Ali stressed that climate finance and adaptation remain Africa’s top priorities in the pursuit of sustainable development objectives. He highlighted that finance is at the core of the continent’s challenges and must be addressed for climate resilience to facilitate the fulfillment of climate obligations.
This comes after a deadlock during the June Bonn meetings, where negotiators prioritized climate finance but could not reach an agreement on the specifics of funding, including the amount, mechanisms, and contributors.
Dr. Seif Hamisi, East Africa Director of Conservation International, noted the importance of addressing key issues related to the protection of natural resources in the African region, stressing their role in both climate change mitigation and adaptation as COP29 approaches.
Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, and Forestry, Hon. Adan Bare Duale, pointed out that the African continent has not received sufficient financial and technical support to effectively implement, track, and report on their current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), even as countries prepare for a new set of NDCs.
The climate crises affecting African countries—including major droughts, floods, storms, and cyclones—have intensified and become more frequent. Amid these severe crises, the continent’s financial and technical capacities to adapt to climate change remain insufficient, with countries having to spend 3% to 5% of their GDP in response to natural hazards.
“Our priority, therefore, is to increase our ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production. A crucial and most urgent objective of this meeting is to prepare our common position paper for COP29. Firstly, finance will lie at the heart of climate diplomacy at COP29 as a critical enabler of climate action. Climate finance is flowing to the continent at an insufficient scale and in unequal directions. Securing a strong, favorable finance deal at COP29 is therefore vital,” said CS Adan Bare Duale.
