African Climate Risks conference 2019

Dismantling the barriers to urgent climate adaptation action. Organised by Future Climate for Africa

By SouthSouthNorth

November 7^th, 2019

Day 1: Urgency of climate adaptation action for Africa stressed by high level speakers

Day 1 of the African Climate Risks Conference began with over 350 researchers gathering from 52 different countries across the African continent and abroad (including the UK, Europe, and America) to discuss the latest research on African climate.

High level speakers officially opened the conference in particular many highlighted the recent disasters, such as Cyclone Idai and Beira, that have struck the continent and the pertinent need for this conference in assessing and addressing the risks of climate change on Africa.

“Climate change will impact the world because of inaction, we are told by science that things are not good but people remain inactive. We are vulnerable on the continent and we need help with adaptation measures as they require finances, technology, capacity building and expertise in weather and climate.” - Fekadu Beyene (Commissioner of the Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Ethiopia)

The five Future Climate for Africa consortia shared their latest climate science findings. John Marsham (University of Leeds, UK) highlighted that “It was exciting for me to see this growing community – from local on the ground to scientists and all the way up to the prime minister work together on climate change.”

Alice McClure, (Climate Systems Analysis Group, University of Cape Town, South Africa) from FRACTAL reflects how shared learning on receptivity can be more important than entry points in the co-production session.

There were a number of parallel thematic sessions, workshops, and trainings that took place throughout the day.

Delegates share their thoughts on the conference through an interactive survey board.

Day 2: Engaging discussions continue on climate change in Africa

A panel discussion on the state of climate research for development in Africa opened the second day. The keynote speaker Dr Joseph Mukabana (World Meteorological Organisation) emphasised the need for Africa to increase its development of researchers and contribution to global research as currently, Africa has 1.1% of the world’s scientific researchers and contributes to less than 1% of the worlds research outputs.

Dr Judy Omumbo (African Academy of Sciences, Kenya) highlighted the importance of fostering the young minds of emerging African climate researchers particularly through building leadership, creating an innovative and science-driven entrepreneurial culture and targeting official gaps in research landscapes.

Further to this, Bruce Hewitson (University of Cape Town, South Africa) spoke of three programmes CORDEX-Africa, FRACTAL, and the CSAG Winter School whose success was attributed to the flexible adaptive structures, sustained dynamic interaction, and allowing the space for African scientists and researchers to intellectually lead.

Researchers from Future Climate for Africa shared the linking of new science to application through presenting an overview and progress of the pilot projects of Future Climate for Africa.

Declan Conway (the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), United Kingdom) presents the UMFULA pilot projects

Mercy Mwaniki, (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Kenya) presents the HyCRISTAL Urban WASH pilot project.

A Co-production workshop on weather and climate services took place, where the Co-production manual was officially launched.

Day 3: Final day sees emphasis on the emerging opportunities & challenges for dismantling barriers to climate adaptation action in Africa

Filipe Lúcio, (Director, Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)) in his keynote address, in the panel discussion on the state of climate information, highlighted the urgency of climate action for Africa, importance to build and improve monitoring and evaluation and to build the capacity of climate services in Africa.

There were 3 interactive poster sessions that took place throughout the day, which provided an opportunity for poster presenters to present and share their research with the conference delegates.

Rosalind West in closing mentioned some points on the way forward such as seeing how the level of ambition can be raised at the Conference of the Parties, the issues that have been mentioned at ACRC will help to inform DFID’s new climate programme (CLARE), and finally that “climate science is not just for climate scientists it is for everyone.”

In the closing plenary, Chris Jack provided a highlight of the conference outcomes noting;

significant progress in high resolution modeling across multiple time scales
strong adoption of co-production approaches while acknowledging the challenges
deeper interrogation of challenges like capacity development and using climate information
progress in linking risk management resilience and climate information

Robi Reda (Director, Southsouthnorth) closed the ACRC by thanking all partners and organisation involved which helped to make the conference possible, going away with renewed hope that progress had been made in dismantling barriers to climate adaptation action for Africa.