Presented by Peter Akong Minang, ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins/World Agroforestry Centre at the PAN AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE, 25-27 JUNE 2009, YAOUNDÉ, CAMEROON

1. Africa in Post 2012 Climate
Change Negotiations: Some
Policy Perspectives
Peter A Minang
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) / ASB Partnership
PAN AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE ON
CLIMATE CHANGE
25-27 JUNE 2009, YAOUNDÉ, CAMEROON

2. Post 2012 Options: Mitigation
• REDD Plus
• Nationally Appropriate Mitigation
Actions (NAMA)- Sectors including
REDD Plus and Agriculture
• Clean Development Mechanism

3. Africa in Current Negotiations (1)
• 2 Key sets of African Actors
• COMIFAC: Central African Forest Commission
have a submission on REDD.
• Futuristic rather than Historic Baselines
• Favour degradation
• Development Adjustment Factor
• Support a Fund

4. Africa in current negotiations (2)
• COMESA: Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
• Support broad AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other
Land Uses) Perspective
• Inclusion of agriculture = better opportunities for
Adaptation benefits and more impact on livelihoods
• Landscape perspective that includes Forest Core, Forest
Frontier and Agriculture / Forest mosaics
• Favour a combination of Market and Non-market
mechanisms
• Small land holders be strongly considered
• AFRICA BIOCARBON INITIATIVE

5. AMCEN on Major issues
• Supports Adaptation as No. 1 Issue
• Calls for firm and effective emission reduction
targets
• Supports fund-based mechanisms
• Supports REDD
• Supports inclusion of Agriculture and
Agroforestry in CDM
• Support CDM Reform
BUT “devil is always in the detail”

6. Message No. 1:
• Africa should support a
REDD Plus Mechanism in
Copenhagen

7. What is REDD?
• Forests store vast amounts of carbon, therefore
preventing deforestation and degradation of
forests = keeping carbon = mitigation of climate
change
• Voluntary International System to motivate forest
management in developing countries
• Countries that are willing and able to reduce
Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degradation are compensated

8. What are the stakes for Africa?
• Carbon Finance can provide Gibbs and Brown (2007)
crucial funding for sustainable
forest management and
poverty alleviation in Africa
• Carbon markets worth about
US$118 Billion and could triple
with REDD
• E.g. RIL in Cameroon could
make USD 12 Million ( at price
$ 12 / tc; cost of $20 / tc on
150000 ha)- Brunner 2001

9. Message No. 2
• Africa should support
progressive extension of REDD
Plus to include Agriculture,
Agroforestry and Trees in the
Landscape

10. Why Agriculture and other land uses?
• Better opportunities for Africa
• Smallholders’ land activities (agric
+) are largely responsible for
deforestation and forest
degradation in Africa
• Tenure and ownership less
controversial in small farm / land
holdings than forest areas
• Agric and Other land uses would
potentially yield more co-benefits
than REDD
• C Markets = 118 US$ Billion while
Adaptation Fund = <200 Millions

11. Africa BioCarbon Initiative:
Interactions between land uses and carbon pools
Agriculture –
Forest
Forest Core Forest
Frontier
Areas Mosaic
Areas
Areas
Intensive arable
agriculture

12. Mitigation Potential of Agriculture
in Africa
• AFOLU 1004 Mt CO2-eq/yr until 2030

13. 3) Conservation Agriculture with
Faidherbia albida
Faidherbia is
indigenous in many
African countries
60 years of research shows on each hectare, mature trees supply the
equivalent of 300kg of complete fertiliser and 250kg of lime. This can
sustain a maize yield of 4 tons/ha.

14. 3) CO-BENEFITS- Conservation Agriculture
benefits (2008/9 Trials)
• At recommended spacing of 10m x 10m – 100 trees per
hectare

15. 2007/8 Faidherbia Trial Results
Maize yield - zero fertiliser
Tons/ha
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________
With Faidherbia 4.1
Without Faidherbia 1.3
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________
Data averaged from 15 trials

16. Message No. 3
• Africa should advocate for
further Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) Reforms

17. How is Africa doing on CDM
• CDM allows Afforestation and reforestation projects from
developing countries in the carbon market
• Africa’s participation in Clean Development Mechanism
= Poor – Less than 4% of Projects
• Only four out 40 forestry projects in the CDM pipeline
(Mali, Tanzania, DRC, Uganda) as at 09/08
• 1 Energy Project now in Tanzania (others in South Africa
and North Africa)
• Post 2012 CDM Scenario unclear

18. Challenges Demand side
• Complicated rules (additionality, registration, MRV)
• Costs- upto 200 000 USD per project (15 k for
consultant to review project)
• Price differential (EU-ETS = 16 $ t C and Other
developing countries = 4tC)
• Contracts under international law is arbitrated in
international courts- Costs, language etc.

19. Message No. 4
• Africa should advocate for
VOLUNTARY Nationally
Appropriate Mitigation Actions
(NAMAs) for Sub-Saharan
Africa

20. Message No. 5
• Africa should continue
advocating for appropriate
combinations of funds and
markets in the post 2012
financial mechanisms

21. Fund vs Market: What Motivations
• Adaptation Fund = 300 Option 1: Funds only
Million USD to date means we may never
get as much
Option 2: Markets have
• Vs more money, but we
may have to fight harder
• 1Billion dollars in 2 for better and fairer
years + rules- Auctions
• Carbon Market = 118 Can also raise adaptation
Billion in 2008 money from mitigation

22. Message No. 6
• Africa must maintain
adaptation as top priority and
promote actions that
contribute to both adaptation
and mitigation

23. What are the stakes for Africa? (3)-
Adaptation
• Africa is most vulnerable
continent
• Costs of strong and urgent
action on climate change will be
less than the costs thereby
avoided of the impacts of
climate change under business
as usual (Stern 2006)

24. How is Africa doing on Climate
Forestry? - Adaptation
• About 24 African Countries have prepared National
Adaptation Plans of Action. Most of which has been done
driven
• Few of these adaptation plans articulate the role of SFM in
climate change adaptation
• A collection of small projects are ongoing at sub-national
level in various countries- few in forestry – e.g. CIFOR in
Central and West Africa

25. Adaptation Finance / Capacity /
Technology Transfer
• Only about 300 Million dollars from
CDM money, not donors
• Governance issues (developing
countries need a greater say)
• Is G77 and China the best forum for
adaptation finance?

26. Message No. 7
• African countries must
improve the numbers, quality
of delegations and strengthen
climate change negotiation
strategies

27. How to Improve Negotiations?
• Increase number of negotiators (only one or two
now compared to 50 for US and 10s for European
delegations)
• Increase number of disciplines represented in
delegations (multi-disciplinary teams)
• Improve sceintific input and analysis into African
country positions (what if scenarios for various
decisions)
• Language support especially for Francophone,
Lusophone Africa)

28. Thank You
Merci
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