COP25 failed to deliver on ambitious climate decisions

African Civil Society has denounced the lack of firm commitments to deep emission cuts from industrialized countries that reflect the scale and urgency of the unfolding climate crisis.

National delegates to the UN climate change conference (COP25) in Madrid failed once more to step up to the existential challenge of the climate crisis, after two weeks of negotiations.

COP25 President, Carolina Schmidt, lamented “the agreements reached by parties are insufficient to tackle the crisis of climate change with urgency. There is still no consensus to raise ambition to the levels needed”.

Acknowledging countries indebtedness to the planet, she noted “the world is watching us and is waiting for concrete solutions from us. For this reason, today we are not satisfied”.

Governments agreed unanimously on the state of urgency and the need to increase ambition to respond to climate change in the next half of the century, inviting countries to update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and to commit to carbon neutrality by 2050.

But the Conference did not achieve an agreement regarding Article 6 and the carbon market, one of the fundamental aspects to operationalize the Paris Agreement.

The African Group of Negotiators had pushed for ambitious decisions that reflect the special circumstances and needs of Africa commensurate with the unfolding climate emergency.

As floods, drought, advancing desertification and storms take their devastating toll on communities, important resources that should be going towards meeting social and economic needs are diverted to emergency response.

“For Africa, true to the language of the Paris Agreement, there have always been three related and equally important aspects to ambition: Ambition with regard to improving our NDCs, Ambition with regard to an adaptation goal and associated action; and Ambition on means of implementation,” said Barbara Creecy, President of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN).

Adaptation finance remains crucial for Africa’s people in the face of deteriorating living conditions as a result of extreme weather phenomena associated with climate change.

“Without adequate means of finance developing countries face almost insurmountable barriers to participating in the war on climate change. It is important that the search for solutions to this continues,” said AMCEN President.

African Civil Society is disappointed with the lack of clear commitment to previously pledged climate finance and new scaled-up finance, particularly to fund gender-responsive adaptation and loss and damage.

“It is quite distressing that at COP25 there is still disagreement on a universal definition for climate finance, which risks further delaying badly needed financial support to developing countries and ensuring accurate climate finance reporting,” said the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) in a statement.

Financial flows from developed countries to pay for adaptation, loss and damage as well as the Gender Action Plan remain main priorities for African countries.

Developed country parties must, therefore, provide enhanced, predictable, adequate and grant-based climate finance to developing country parties, while continuing to fulfil their pre-2020 climate finance commitment of US$100 billion per year during the period.

Hundreds of climate activists engaged in a peaceful but loud protest close to the plenary halls of COP25 as ministers dragged their feet on negotiations inside.

But governments cannot ignore the groundswell of public opinion demanding an urgent response to the climate crisis in entering a ‘decade of ambition’ that must see transformative policies to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

COP25: Civil society angry at attempts to silence them in the climate negotiations

Civil society organizations attending the COP25 climate talks say they voices are being silenced.

Hundreds of the activists demonstrated inside the halls of COP25 in Madrid on Wednesday – not to block progress, but to drive it forward.

With the motto “Step up, pay up”, the CSOs sent a message to the rich industrialized countries who refuse to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement and human rights law to provide finance to support communities suffering from increasingly severe disasters.

More than 20 CSOs including 350.org, ActionAid, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth International, Greenpeace International and International Trade Union Confederation in a joint statement said:

Our motto was, “Step up, pay up.” It was a message to the rich industrialized countries who refuse to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement and human rights law to provide finance to support communities suffering from increasingly severe disasters.

It was a message to the corporate polluters, who roam these halls attempting to profit from the world’s suffering with their false solutions to climate change rather than making a transition away from a fossil fuel economy and paying for the damage they’ve done.

Instead of kicking out these polluters, the UNFCCC 25th Conferences of the Parties (COP25) kicked out the people. Instead of listening to our voices, they attempted to silence us.

We were pushed, bullied, and touched without our consent. We were driven out of the negotiating halls, told that we can take our action outside as they raised an enormous metal door and herded us out.

We weren’t advised to the intentions of the UN security to take our badges. We stood out in the cold, many without our jackets and coats as we later watched the enormous metal door lock us out in the cold. An Indigenous woman was not allowed to go back inside to feed her baby.

This has never happened before in 25 years of negotiations. Yet, there could be no better symbol of this crisis we face. People around the world are crying out for justice, and fighting oppression, while those in power attempt to shut us out.

They pay us lip service, thanking us for our action, but when the time comes to act, they slam the door in our face while providing a platform to polluters. The UN and countries want to recognize the traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples but chose not to recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is a pattern that takes place around the world, from Chile to the halls of COP25, to every place where local communities and Indigenous Peoples are fighting for their rights and their future.

We will not back down. We demand full access for civil society, the people of the world, to these negotiations and all international processes. We demand that our voices be heard.

The people united will never be defeated!

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

COP25: Delay in Taking Climate Action will come at a high cost

The High-Level Segment of the UN Climate Change Conference COP25 kicked off on Tuesday, with urgent reminders that the international community is running out of time to effectively tackle the climate crisis and must change course and step up ambition in order to prevent the worst climate impacts.

Speaking at the opening, Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), pointed out that two climate statements published by his organization this year are not good news.

“Global warming continues. The average global temperature has risen by about 1.1°C since the pre-industrial era and the ocean has warmed by half a degree. 220 million people suffered from heatwaves last year. We have started seeing growth in hunger once again. Now we have more than 800 million people suffering from lack of food,” he said.

COP25 President and Chile’s Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt warned that droughts, fires and floods are hitting the people in her region, Latin America and the Caribbean, with the most vulnerable being the hardest hit.

Similar concerns have been raised by the African Group at the talks.

“This conference must change the course of action. A change of course in ambition by bringing new actors to the table: Regional, local and city governments and the sector both productive and financial. Because action is not and should not be just a political issue. National commitments are necessary but not sufficient. No one can be left out,” said Carolina.

She pointed out that the Chilean COP Presidency had for the first time brought on board not just environment ministers, but ministers of agriculture, science, energy and not least finance who “hold the purse strings” for climate action.

Ghana’s Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, who is leading the Ghanaian delegation to the conference, is emphasizing the special needs and circumstances of Africa and the urgent need for climate action now.

Also of interest to him is the need to increase ambition to meet the 2 degrees set by the Paris Agreement, completions of work under Article 6 for Market and Non-Market mechanisms which Ghana is planning to pilot with the government of Switzerland, increase in finance for developing countries especially for Adaptation and the need to protect the ocean as an integral part of the earth climate system.

Civil Society continues to focus on the needs of the most vulnerable developing countries who are already facing losses and damages from the effects of climate change. 

“The business as usual posture must end. The vulnerable people in Africa want to see real climate action on the ground and it behooves on the world leaders to do the right thing, to finance climate action and pay for the harm done through their activities,” said Dr. Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).

Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change (UNFCCC), Patricia Espinosa, has made a passionate appeal to Ministers to make progress during the last remaining days of the COP:

“On both a professional and personal level, my message to you is this: We need your decisions. We need your leadership. We are out of time.”

The UN’s top climate change official also said she was optimistic that progress could be made, given that the Paris Agreement remained an “unprecedented multilateral success story,” with the bulk of the operationalizing guidelines already agreed.  “Because of your work, the cornerstones of the Paris Agreement are in place and fully functioning," she said.

Whilst there are many facets of climate action, and progress needs to be made on finance, technology and capacity building, one key topic that needs to be resolved at COP25 and is crucial to raise climate ambition is the use of carbon markets in order to tackle climate change.

“We recognize that a lot of technical work on this issue will remain for the future… but an agreement here in Madrid is crucial. We’ve made progress in the last few days, but we need to push on and finalize our work,” she said.

“Article 6 is the only part of the Paris Agreement that directly engages with the private sector, helping them contribute to climate action and, ultimately, to the implementation of NDCs,” she added.

NDCs are “Nationally Determined Contributions” - national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement. By COP26 next year, new and updated NDCs will be submitted.

“2020 is only a few weeks away—the year when we must see more climate ambition reflected in new and revised NDCs. Without them, our window of opportunity closes,” Patricia Espinosa concluded.

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the UN General Assembly, pointed out that global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak fast, and that solutions to climate change exist. “But any delay will come at a high cost," he warned.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh

COP25: Why Africa is negotiating finance for loss and damage

It’s difficult for Africa to engage in the climate negotiations without emotions, says Ambassador Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a top African climate negotiator.
 

As a continent that contributed least to climate change, Africa remains most vulnerable to the impacts – experiencing increasing extreme weather events such as cyclones, droughts, floods and desertification.

Historically, Africa is the continent with the lowest carbon footprint. But the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that Africa will be impacted at least 2⁰C more than the average – if the warming is 1.5⁰C in other continents, Africa could be experiencing 3.5⁰C.

The vulnerability of the African continent was recently evident when more than 1,000 people were killed across Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe due to Cyclone Idai. The World Bank estimates that the economic loss from cyclone Idai is around $2 billion dollars. 

When the needs of Africa are therefore not prioritized at the global climate negotiations, emotions rise.

Always being at the forefront of the climate change fight, Africa has opted to set emotions aside by choosing the scientific path as an objective tool of engagement.

For Ambassador Mpanu Mpanu, the continent needs to receive means of implementation in areas of financial resources and technology transfer as already contained in the conventions, common commitments and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

“It is important that when we decide something together, it is important that we deliver on our promises,” he said.

Climate impacts go beyond environment realm

Climate related disasters have increased exponentially in Africa over the past two decades. Although the mortality rate due to disasters is decreasing, the number of people affected, and the economic impact of disasters on the continent, is rising. 

This can be largely ascribed to improvements in development, including urbanization, and economic activities. Despite these improvements, the economic and social growth achieved so far is very fragile and susceptible to climate risks and disasters. 

According to the World Bank (2019), many African countries have made significant development achievements in the last few decades with annual growth averaging 4.5 percent, but increasing weather, water, and climate risks threaten these gains. 

Today, climate change is going beyond the environmental realm to geo-politics.

A report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has warned that climate change will widen the policy gap of increasing food security in the global South, because climate change impacts will affect not only harvests but also the systems that people use to transport, store and buy and sell food.

“Food security is back on the agenda thanks to rising prices and the threat that climate change poses to agricultural production,” says the report’s author Dr Cecilia Tacoli. “But policies that focus on rural food production alone will not tackle the rising food insecurity in urban areas. We also need policies that improve poor people’s ability to access and afford food, especially in urban areas.”

Africa remains highly vulnerable to disaster and climate risks, and other human induced hazards with related risks and disasters affecting millions of people, leading to loss of lives and livelihoods, causing conflict, migration, displacement, human insecurity and humanitarian challenges, which reverse development gains.

Africa’s dilemma of resource exploitation against climate ambitions

The fossil fuel industry liability is a growing area of focus as the industry’s long history of denial and the link between industry emissions and climate impacts becomes more evidenced.

Some 100 fossil fuel companies are responsible for 71% of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.

At the 25^th Conference of Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Madrid, Spain, representatives from a global coalition have delivered a call to governments to hold polluting industries liable and make them pay for the damage they have knowingly caused and for real climate solutions.

“Big Polluters are most responsible for this crisis and must be made to pay for the damages, loss of life, and climate doubt their operations have knowingly created,” said Sriram Madhusoodanan of Corporate Accountability.

African countries are currently discovering lots of minerals and natural resources, especially oil and gas, which are important for wealth creation and economic advancement. The discoveries are in the midst of a strong call from the international community against investments in the extractives as high emitting industries.

This puts Africa’s policy makers in a dilemma – though committed to climate change, they are faced with the challenge of meeting high socio-economic needs.

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN), therefore, wants parties at COP25 to acknowledge the special needs and circumstances of countries on the African continent.

“What we want to have here is a process whereby Africa is allowed and encouraged to go on the sustainable path of development while at the same time making sure that things are going in the right direction,” said AGN Chair, Ambassador Mohamed Nasr.

He emphasized that Africa’s demand is not a competition on vulnerability but looking ahead to deal with the impacts of climate change in line with the Paris Agreement, while ensuring the continent is on a sustainable path.

Madrid must deliver on expectations of vulnerable countries

The AGN’s position is backed by African civil society, who posits that countries on the continent are only demanding what it deserves.

The African expectation is for the international community to demonstrate the willingness to fight climate change to convince Africa to stay on the good path of sustainability.

“We say finances and technology should be made available to encourage Africa to stay on the chosen path which is a low carbon development pathway,” said Augustine Njamnshi of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).

The first week of the COP25 summit focused on technical matters, including rules for carbon markets, and a review of the work on loss and damage for people and communities who are losing their homes, land and livelihoods to climate change.

“When people and communities experience loss and damage due to cyclones, droughts and flooding, they need effective support. While developed countries seem to acknowledge that this is a problem, they fail to commit to any reasonable steps towards addressing it. We need new and additional sources of finance for vulnerable communities facing loss and damage,” said Isaiah Toroitich, head of advocacy and development policy at the ACT Alliance.

Work on resilience building is gaining momentum on the continent with bold institutional frameworks and strategies, including the 50-year Pan-Africa Agenda 2063 adopted in 2003.

Ambassador Mpanu Mpanu however says “it is important that while we are here in Madrid [CP25], we work steadfastly to come out with results, agreements, decisions to implement the Paris Agreement because we don’t have any time to lose as Africans. We are ready to move forward. Africa is ready to move on the basis of science, rule of law, equity and good faith”.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh, in Madrid, Spain.

World Farmers Organization pushes climate-smart agriculture for Africa

The uncertainty in predicting the weather has been the single major challenge to productive farming in Ghana and other parts of Africa in recent years.

Access to weather information and irrigation services are among interventions farmers need to survive the unexpected changes.

Speaking to 3news.com on the sidelines of the 25^th UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, President of the World Farmers Organization, Theo de Jager, said smallholder farmers need to be exposed to climate smart agriculture for sustainability.

After years of negotiations on how mankind should deal with climate change, farmer’ organizations have managed to ensure the mainstreaming of agriculture in the climate talks.

The buzz word in the climate circles today is climate-smart agriculture.

For small-holder farmers in Africa who are often food-insecure and the poorest, climate-smart agriculture is in line with modernization and mechanization of food production.

“Africa’s time has come to have a revolution in agricultural production because we have everything which money cannot buy; the climate, soils, land, water, the people. What we lack are things we can bring about through investments; the linkages to markets, processing facilities, the financing, expertise and the experience,” noted Theo.

He is hopeful these opportunities would be unlocked by the African farmers themselves.

Theo, a South African farmer, believes farmers in Africa can pull the trigger by forming stronger cooperatives to increase output and secure their future.

“I believe with every cell in my body, give us 25–30 years, if we have this common dream we can do it; not through mining, not through oil, not through tourism [but] through agriculture,” he said.

The World Farmers Organization is the apex body for 86 national farmers’ organizations across the globe, comprising large-scale and small-holder farmers.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

Africa at the crossroads of taking climate action

Africa is at the crossroads of taking climate action in the midst of an urgency to meet the continent’s development needs.

As the urgency to act on climate change grows, international climate policies and the advent of low-carbon technologies are reducing the demand for, and value of, fossil fuels.

Carbon tracker estimates that 60-80% of coal, oil and gas reserves could be classified as unburnable if the world is to avoid disastrous climate change.

This puts Africa at risk of asset stranding, especially in mineral resource-rich countries.

A new report by the United Nations University – Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA) has identified climate change as a key driver to asset stranding in Africa’s natural resources sector, which contributes substantially to export revenues of a majority of African countries.

The research, Africa in the age of stranded assets, argues that managing the risks associated with asset stranding will be fundamental to sustaining government revenues from extractive resources.

“Africa has had a difficult history with its natural resources, where many resource-rich African countries have experienced poor development outcomes. Stranded assets present a new challenge, but also give a unique opportunity for Africa to deepen its drive towards economic diversification”, said Dr. Fatima Denton, Director, at UNU-INRA.

“With this report, we want to send a clear message that the reality of stranded assets is already happening. There is the urgent need for African governments and their partners to find the right balance between Africa’s developmental needs using extractive resources and achieving climate action ambitions”, Dr. Denton added.

The report, launched on the sidelines of the UN climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, stands on deep contextual research from eight African countries; Angola, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Niger, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. It offers voices and insights from the continent often missing from the global conversation on resource use and climate change.

Youba Sokona, Vice Chair of the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), highlighted the need for African countries to have “vision, institutions, human resources and knowledge,” and to “invest in long term plans”.

He mentioned that African countries that do not have carbon intensive infrastructure need to start their developmental plans with a new outlook. “We do not need to decarbonize, we need to jumpstart.”

The African continent emits less than 4% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, but remains most vulnerable to climate change, according to science and reality.

Yet adaptation and ambitious finance targets for developing countries, as resolved by parties at COP21 Paris, are not prioritized in the current climate negotiations.

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN) is pushing for immediate new targets and to make finance available based on the needs of countries.

The common position of African at COP25 is the push for parties to acknowledge Africa’s special needs and circumstances, as countries are compelled to invest 2-9percent of their annual budgets to local adaptation projects.

As African countries continue to discover new resources, they may be challenged in exploiting these resources for the benefit of its people.

There are arguments therefore that Africa’s should perhaps delay its transition from fossil to renewable while charting a new growth path.

Landry Ninteretse, the Regional Team Leader of 350Africa.org, however wants African decision-makers to heed the call of the people and urgently take action by focusing on solutions that eliminate fossil fuels and transition to clean and sustainable energy.

“At the village, city, district and county levels, people are coming together to challenge the power of the fossil fuel industry. Unions, faith groups and non-environmental groups are joining them to build alternative people-centred solutions,” he observed. “With the continuous energy technology innovations making renewable energy more accessible and affordable, we believe that Africa can and must lead the way in this watershed moment in history, by addressing the climate crisis while creating a more just and equitable world and generating millions of new jobs for its growing youth population powered by technologically advanced renewable sources”.

The UNU-INRA’s report on stranded assets discusses Africa’s development in light of potential asset stranding, in the hopes of alerting African governments to the need for effective natural resource planning towards lower carbon economies.

For civil society activists, Dr. Mithika Mwenda, “we need a radical position of where we need to go as Africa”.

By Kofi Adu Domfeh, in Madrid-Spain

AfDB takes the continent’s climate agenda to COP25 in Spain

The African Development Bank has kicked off a campaign to present the continent’s case at the world’s leading climate change conference.
 

The COP25 in Madrid, Spain comes at a crucial time for the globe and Africa in particular. In recent years, rising temperatures have wreaked havoc with weather patterns, leading to suffocating heat and devastating storms. In Africa, the climate has exacerbated food shortages and destroyed infrastructure.

African countries know all too well the risks posed by climate change, said Wale Shonibare, the Bank’s Acting Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth.

He cited the devastating impact of Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and the Comoros earlier this year.

“However, Africa also offers climate smart investment opportunities – from country-led innovation centers, to transformative renewable energy initiatives. For example, this year, the Bank approved financing for the first on-grid solar power public-private partnership in Chad, under the Desert to Power initiative,” Shonibare said.

Projects like Desert to Power will be highlighted at COP 25, which brings together leaders and institutions from 196 nations plus the European Union, who have signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

At the heart of the matter are the Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, which form part of the landmark Paris Agreement, signed in 2015 during COP21 in the French capital. The NDCs are specific climate change targets that each country must set.

The Paris Agreement has been ratified by 51 out of 54 African countries. It binds countries to cutting carbon emissions to ensure that global temperatures do not rise by more than 2°C by the end of this century, while attempting to contain it within 1.5°C.

Climate finance is another issue that will top the agenda at COP25 in Madrid.

“2020 is a critical year in securing adequate resources for African countries to meet their Paris Agreement commitments, clarity and transparency on global climate finance access is essential to deliver climate action faster and at scale,” said Anthony Nyong, Director Climate Change and Green Growth Department at the African Development Bank.

The African Development Bank is joining the other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in a pavilion to showcase the joint commitment to combatting climate change. The Bank will participate in several panel discussions at COP25, and will support the advocacy efforts of its regional member countries.

The Bank is playing a leading role in guiding progress on climate change on the continent.

Some of its achievements are:

• More than 50% of 2019 climate finance allocated to adaptation projects.
• 85% of investments are screened for climate risk and for greenhouse gas emissions. The Bank’s ambition is to screen all projects by 2020.
• By next year, 40% of the Bank’s own investments will be dedicated to climate finance.
• The Bank has doubled its total climate change commitment to $25 billion between 2020 and 2025, with more than half of it going to adaptation.

2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat and high-impact weather

The year 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities.

Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods are almost certain to be the highest on record. 2019 is on course to be the second or third warmest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

The WMO provisional statement on the State of the Global Climate, says that the global average temperature in 2019 (January to October) was about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record level of 407.8 parts per million in 2018 and continued to rise in 2019. CO2 lasts in the atmosphere for centuries and the ocean for even longer, thus locking in climate change.

Sea level rise has accelerated since the start of satellite measurements in 1993 because of the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, according to the report.

The ocean, which acts as a buffer by absorbing heat and carbon dioxide, is paying a heavy price. Ocean heat is at record levels and there have been widespread marine heatwaves. Sea water is 26 percent more acidic than at the start of the industrial era. Vital marine ecosystems are being degraded.

The daily Arctic sea-ice extent minimum in September 2019 was the second lowest in the satellite record and October has seen further record low extents. In Antarctica, 2019 saw record low ice extents in some months.

“If we do not take urgent climate action now, then we are heading for a temperature increase of more than 3°C by the end of the century, with ever more harmful impacts on human wellbeing,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “We are nowhere near on track to meet the Paris Agreement target.”

“On a day-to-day basis, the impacts of climate change play out through extreme and “abnormal” weather. And, once again in 2019, weather and climate related risks hit hard. Heatwaves and floods which used to be “once in a century” events are becoming more regular occurrences. Countries ranging from the Bahamas to Japan to Mozambique suffered the effect of devastating tropical cyclones. Wildfires swept through the Arctic and Australia,” said Mr Taalas.

“One of the main impacts of climate change is more erratic rainfall patterns. This poses a threat to crop yields and, combined with population increase, will mean considerable food security challenges for vulnerable countries in the future,” he said.

The report devotes an extensive section to weather and climate impacts on human health, food security, migration, ecosystems and marine life. This is based on input from a wide variety of United Nations partners (listed in notes to editors).

Extreme heat conditions are taking an increasing toll on human health and health systems with greater impacts where there are aging populations, urbanization, urban heat island effects, and health inequities. In 2018, a record 220 million more heatwave exposures by vulnerable persons over the age of 65 occurred, compared with the average for the baseline of 1986- 2005.

Climate variability and extreme weather events are among the key drivers of the recent rise in global hunger and one of the leading causes of severe crises. After a decade of steady decline, hunger is on the rise again – over 820 million people suffered from hunger in 2018. Among 33 countries affected by food crises in 2018, climate variability and weather extremes a compounding driver together with economic shocks and conflict in 26 countries and the leading driver in 12 of the 26.

More than 10 million new internal displacements were recorded between January and June 2019, 7 million being triggered by hazard events such as Cyclone Idai in southeast Africa, Cyclone Fani in south Asia, Hurricane Dorian in the Caribbean, flooding in Iran, the Philippines and Ethiopia, generating acute humanitarian and protection needs.

The provisional State of the Climate report provides an authoritative source of information for the U.N. climate change negotiations, known as CoP25, which take place in Madrid from 2 to 13 December. It complements the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The final Statement on the State of the Climate with complete 2019 data will be published in March 2020.