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United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The treaty aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gas in order to combat global warming.

The treaty as originally framed set no mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual nations and contained no enforcement provisions; it is therefore considered legally non-binding.

Rather, the treaty included provisions for updates (called "protocols") that would set mandatory emission limits. The principal update is the Kyoto Protocol, which has become much better known than the UNFCCC itself.

The UNFCCC was opened for signature on May 9, 1992. It entered into force on March 21, 1994. Its stated objective is "to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a low enough level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."

Signatories to the UNFCCC are split into three groups:

Annex I countries (industrialized countries)
Annex II countries (developed countries which pay for costs of developing countries)
Developing countries.

Annex I countries agree to reduce their emissions (particularly carbon dioxide) to target levels below their 1990 emissions levels. If they cannot do so, they must buy emission credits or invest in conservation. Annex II countries, that have to provide financical resources for the developing countries, are a sub-group of the annex I countries consisting of the OECD members, without these that were with transition economy in 1992.

Developing countries have no immediate restrictions under the UNFCCC. This serves three purposes:

Avoids restrictions on growth because pollution is strongly linked to industrial growth, and developing economies can potentially grow very fast.
It means that they cannot sell emissions credits to industrialized nations to permit those nations to over-pollute.
They get money and technologies from the developed countries in Annex II.

Africa and the Climate Negotiations

The Twelfth Session of the conference of Parties to United Nation Convenition on Climate Change (UNFCCC-COP12), held in Nairobi from 6-17 November 2006 was significant to African countries in particular and developing countries in general. This is because it presented them with an opportunity to lobby for equitable distribution of the clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.

Since parties agreed on the Kyoto Protocol which gave birth to the CDM in Japan in 1997, the issue has remained as emotive as ever, with Africa being of the opinion that industrialized countries are given preference to other regions while ignoring the continent. This despite the fact that scientists have confirmed that Africa will suffer the most from the impacts of climate change

Almost all governments in Africa have signed and ratified the UNFCCC, as well as ratifying the Kyoto protocol. Although they have shown political willingness to globally cooporate and collaborate in the implementation of both these legal instruments, the biggest hurddle lies with the negotiators and individuals structurally referred to by the UNFCCC as Designated National Authorities, who are more often than not non-functional and have no competent staff in matters of climate change. Keen observers have bitterly argued that Africa has not constucted a powerful and coordinated team to negoitiate with other parties in important conferences, thus largely losing out to other regions.

It is also significant to note that resource flow from the rich countries responsible for climate change has been disappointingly slow and at the same time quite negligible to meaningfully assist Africa to adapt to climate change. This means the litte development gains that the continent is struggling to make may be diminished by the impacts of climate change in particular, in infrastructure development as well as other sectors.

In recognition of its role in social, economic and political development, African Civil Society has come up forcefully and contributed remarkably towards the strengthening of African voices in international fora by trying to respond to global efforts that aim to address the adverse effects of climate change.

Climate Network Africa, a Non-governmental Organization that lobbys and advocates for relevant policy changes on climate change related issues in Africa, ELCI, Eco-Build Africa, Fair-trade Foundation of Kenya, Indiginous Information Network, African Institute for Health and Development among others Africa together with the All Conference of Churches/ Caritas Ecumenical Platform (AACC/Caritas) where part of an advocacy and lobby group of member organizations from Africa named Climate Change Campaign Africa. This group strengthened CSO capacity to understand the UNFCCC process and to lobby their local governments to articulte coherent demands and recommendations during climate negotiations and provided a platform for an African Civil Society unified voice at the COP 12.