The
Bank is playing a leading role in guiding progress on climate change on
the continent. The Bank has doubled its total climate change commitment
to $25 billion between 2020 and 2025.
The African Development Bank (http://www.AfDB.org) will on Monday kick off a campaign to plead the continent’s case at the world’s leading climate change conference.
The 25th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) (http://bit.ly/37Sg92z)
comes at a crucial time for the globe and Africa in particular. In
recent years, rising temperatures have wreaked havoc with weather
patterns, leading to suffocating heat and devastating storms. In Africa,
the climate has exacerbated food shortages and destroyed
infrastructure.
African countries know all too well the risks
posed by climate change, said Wale Shonibare, the Bank’s Acting Vice
President for Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth. He cited
the devastating impact of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique,
Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and the Comoros earlier this year.
“However,
Africa also offers climate smart investment opportunities – from
country-led innovation centers, to transformative renewable energy
initiatives. For example, this year, the Bank approved financing for the
first on-grid solar power public-private partnership in Chad, under the
Desert to Power initiative,” Shonibare said.
Projects like
Desert to Power will be highlighted at COP 25, which will from 2 to 13
December bring together leaders and institutions from 196 nations plus
the European Union, who have signed up to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change.
At the heart of the matter are the
Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, which form part of the
landmark Paris Agreement, signed in 2015 during COP21 in the French
capital. The NDCs are specific climate change targets that each country
must set.
The Paris Agreement has been ratified by 51 out of 54
African countries. It binds countries to cutting carbon emissions to
ensure that global temperatures do not rise by more than 2°C by the end
of this century, while attempting to contain it within 1.5°C.
Climate finance is another issue that will top the agenda at COP25 in Madrid.
“2020
is a critical year in securing adequate resources for African countries
to meet their Paris Agreement commitments, clarity and transparency on
global climate finance access is essential to deliver climate action
faster and at scale,” said Anthony Nyong, Director Climate Change and
Green Growth Department at the African Development Bank.
The
African Development Bank is joining the other Multilateral Development
Banks (MDBs) in a pavilion to showcase the joint commitment to
combatting climate change. The Bank will participate in several panel
discussions at COP25, and will support the advocacy efforts of its
regional member countries. The Bank is playing a leading role in guiding
progress on climate change on the continent. Some of its achievements
are:
- 85% of investments are screened for climate risk and for greenhouse gas emissions. The Bank’s ambition is to screen all projects by 2020.
- By next year, 40% of the Bank’s own investments will be dedicated to climate finance.
- The Bank has doubled its total climate change commitment to $25 billion between 2020 and 2025, with more than half of it going to adaptation.
