Africa Climate Summit latest: Loss & damage fund, adaption plans

Majid al Suwaidi, the director general of COP28, insisted that a loss and damage fund to help the poorest nations deal with the impact of global warming will be made fully operational at this year’s global climate summit in Dubai — a year after agreement was reached to establish it.

Dan Jorgensen, Denmark’s minister for development cooperation and global climate policy, and Barbara Creecy, South Africa’s environment minister, the co-heads of the so-called Global Stocktake, which assesses what has been achieved in terms of meeting the climate action targets governments have set and what needs to be done, aren’t so sure.

It still needs to be determined who will contribute to the fund and who will benefit from it before donors step forward, Jorgensen said.

“I definitely think that the big battle, so to speak,” was fought over whether to set up the fund, he said in an interview at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. “I hope that from now on it’ll be more focused on actual implementation of the decisions made last year.”

Creecy also said in a separate interview that work remains to be done on the fund.

Barbara Creecy at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 4. Image: Fredrik Lerneryd/Bloomberg

Biggest climate adaptation program lays out Africa investment case (September 6, 8:54 a.m.)

The Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program, the world’s biggest climate resilience initiative, introduced its first country-specific investment plans in a bid to woo additional finance.

The so-called climate adaptation country compacts are meant to outline adaptation investment opportunities, financing needs and fund mobilization plans, the $25 billion initiative said in a statement. The AAAP is run by the Rotterdam-based Global Center on Adaptation and the Abidjan-based African Development Bank.

While Africa produces less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, its nations are among the hardest hit by climate change. The continent may need $100 billion a year to buttress its infrastructure against adverse weather and shield its crops from droughts, the GCA said in a report.

Bezos earth fund pledges money for land restoration (September 5, 6 p.m.) 

The Bezos Earth Fund announced $22.8 million in funding to help accelerate the restoration of two areas in Africa that are seen as critical for carbon sequestration, biodiversity and human wellbeing.

The grants will fund the rehabilitation of 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of degraded land in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, Bezos Earth Fund President and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Steer said at the summit. It will also fund the restoration of the Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, part of the world’s second-largest rain forest and home to five million people, he said.

The funding forms part of the Earth Fund’s $1 billion commitment to landscape restoration globally.

Tanzania needs $9.9bn for climate adaption (September 5, 6:20 p.m.)

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said her country will need $9.9 billion for climate adaptation over the next three years and will engage potential investors in November.

She spoke at the launch of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program Investment Compacts at the Nairobi summit. The compacts are country-specific investment plans for adaptation projects.

UAE pledges $4.5bn to help finance Africa climate projects (September 5, 9:44 a.m.)

The United Arab Emirates, the host of this year’s United Nations climate summit, pledged $4.5 billion to help African nations accelerate clean-energy projects.

Abu Dhabi’s clean-energy producer Masdar, the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, Etihad Credit Insurance, the nation’s export credit agency, and AMEA Power, a Dubai-based renewable-energy company, will provide the funds, the COP28 Presidency said in a statement.

Africa may need an almost 10-fold increase in climate adaptation funding to $100 billion a year to help bolster infrastructure and shield its agriculture from climate change, the Global Center on Adaptation said.

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