Ghana to kick-start year of ambition at Africa Climate Summit

The provisional program for Africa Climate Week 2019, which is being hosted from 18–22 March in Accra, Ghana, has now been published online – showcasing a dynamic schedule of activities that will demonstrate enhanced ambition across the continent. Full details concerning topics and speakers will follow in due course.

Hosted by the Government of Ghana, the event arrives in the wake of the COP24 international climate negotiations, which concluded with the successful finalization of the ‘Katowice Climate Package’ on 15 December –also known as the Paris Agreement Work Program. It, therefore, represents the first major climate-orientated event in 2019 that will promote the Program’s ‘guidelines’ as the underpinning to practically implement the Paris Agreement.

The timely completion of these operational elements – and the ramping-up of national ambition relating to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change and support for developing countries to take climate action – will be critical to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and, ultimately, keeping the global average temperature rise to as close as possible to 1.5°C.

In terms of climate action, 2019 is already being hailed as the year of ambition, since the world has until 2020 for countries to come back to the table to revise their national climate action plans.

Governments, private sector and other non-Party stakeholders will gather in Accra throughout this Climate Week – which also incorporates two days of affiliated events throughout 18-19 March – to promote the critical work under the three transformational areas via the three levers of policy, technology and finance.

The Africa Climate Week is the first of three annual regional climate events this year – the latter two being the Latin America & Caribbean Climate Week and the Asia Pacific Climate Week. The Africa Climate Week is being orchestrated by a number of core partners, including World Bank Group, African Development Bank, West African Development Bank, CTCN, UNEP, UNEP DTU Partnership, UNDP, IETA, Marrakech Partnership and UN Climate Change.

Broadly speaking, the collective goal of these Climate Weeks is to support the implementation of countries’ NDCs under the Paris Agreement and climate action to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals. In so doing, they bring together a diverse array of international stakeholders in the public and private sectors around the common goal of enhancing climate action.

Original source: UNFCCC
Published on 15 January 2019