Mayors from Africa attend Pre-COP22: Cotonou Declaration

It was acknowledged that cities and regions play a major role in energy demand and consumption, urban planning, transport and agriculture, but they also influence decision and policy making making.  This milestone meeting in Cotonou leads up to the twenty-second Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be hosted in Marrakesh, Morocco, from 7 to 18 November 2016.

The Cotonou Declaration recognises the importance of the Paris Agreement and encourage all African States to ratify it and commit to implementing steps to reduce global warming.  It builds on various international commitments made by local governments including the Durban Adaptation Charter, the Yamoussoukro Declaration, the Declaration of the Paris Local Leaders Summit and others programmes such as the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Since Africa represents 15% of the world population and uses only 3% of global energy consumption, local governments stress the importance to consider access to affordable energy across the continent as a priority.  Energy efficiency, effective public transport and local adaptation programmes are some of the ways in which sub-national governments can actively contribute towards the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) that are considered as one of the key pillars for the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Regions, cities and local communities can effectively integrate and coherently implement the Sustainable Develop Goals, the Climate Agenda and the New Urban Agenda.  The Cotonou Declaration requests a dedicated funding stream within the Green Climate Fund to finance local and regional governments’ Climate programmes and projects, including capacity development programs to acquire skills necessary to elaborate Climate plans and to prepare funding requests.

Because Africa represents 15% of the world population and uses only 3% of global energy consumption, it stresses the importance of access to renewable and affordable energy across the continent. Energy efficiency, effective public transport and local adaptation programmes are some of the ways in which sub-national governments can actively contribute towards the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) as part of the Paris Agreement.

The Forum called on local governments of the continent to sign up to the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy for Sub Saharan Africa which official launching will be done during COP 22 in Marrakech.

The Forum requested that local councillors and regional leaders of Africa massively participate in COP 22 in Marrakesh, in order that the united voice of Africa is heard at the Summit of 1,000 local governments organized on 14 November in the fframework of COP 22.

ICLEI Africa is teaming up with UCLG-Africa to unite the voice of local governments of Africa and take necessary initiatives to guide and facilitate the development and implementation of capacity building, leading up to COP22 and beyond. We encourage all mayors across Africa to collaborate and actively commit towards implementing change.