
Bonn, 13 June, 2024
The Bonn Climate Change Conference concluded today after two weeks of intensive work across a range of issues where progress was needed on the path to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in November 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
AfricaNewsAnalysis’ Sandra Prufer met with and had an exclusive interview with Sena Alouka, a delegate from the Republic of Togo at the Bonn Climate Change Conference. Alouka is the chair of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) climate change and agroecology working group and the executive director of Young Volunteers for the Environment in Togo. How can regenerative and ecological agriculture practices help African communities to improve their adaptive capacity?
Excerpts:
Sandra/AfricaNewsAnalysis: Sena, looking at your attendance here at this year’s UN climate negotiations in Bonn –today is the last day and we’re nearing the last plenary session– it looks like not much progress has been made so far. You are here as a delegate from Togo and looked specifically into the agriculture sector. Can you tell me a little bit about what happened here over the last few days and the expected outcome?
Sena Alouka: Well, the agricultural negotiations finally ended up with a text that agreed on countries to continue the conversations on agriculture. We are negotiating about ways to use agriculture as a sector to enhance adaptation and at the same time to support communities in their climate resilience building processes. As a result of the the last COP in 2023 in Dubai, we had what we call the Sharm el Sheikh Joint Work Action on Implementation of the Climate Action in Agriculture and Food Security. So, in that context we were negotiating here, at the SB-60 meetings in Bonn, how parties will meet in the future to discuss how to coordinate further action because coordination will help us to move from talks to concrete action on the ground.
Sandra/AfricaNewsAnalysis: Looking ahead, on the road to the next COP in Azerbaijan, what are you planning on the ground?
Sena Alouka: Leading up to the COP29 in Baku, we have three pillar activities. The first one is how we can support our countries to make submissions in this on-going negotiation process. There are a few negotiation tracks like agriculture, loss and damage, in which African countries need to submit their views on various issues, for instance in agricultural countries like Togo, Ghana, and Lesotho. They need to submit what they think is critical for farmers in Africa. So, we are going to support these countries to do that. Secondly, we are looking at the review of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), the national commitments by countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This is part of the global stocktake process, a key part of the Paris agreement and the so-called Rachet Mechansim, which encourages countries to scale up their climate ambition and NDCs over time to avoid dangerous effects of global warming. Countries like Ghana,Togo and Chad, already started this process, and we are supporting them.
Our third pillar is about building a strong African climate action civil society movement. So we are organising a huge Pan-African caravan ahead of the COP29. We have already organised similar climate caravans in the last two years. This year’s event will be taking place in 35 African countries. The idea is to bring voices from the ground, from communities living on the frontline of climate change to decision makers. So the rally will include local village councils, performances with dancing and chanting. We are going to people living near the islands, in coastal communities, forests and on mountain tops to listen to them. How are they adapting to climate change, how things are changing in their environments? What do they need to improve their local climate adaptation efforts? So these are things that we are planning to do in the near future.
Sandra/AfricaNewsAnalysis: Excellent. Will this climate caravan also be documented and presented to local decision and policy makers and to UN delegates so that their voices are heard?
Sena Alouka: Yes, the idea is to bring African voices from the ground and front-line communities of climate change to the table. If I think the case of Ghana, how can a farmer in Tamale or farmers in other parts of the country send a clear message to both the municipality, the mayor, the Minister for Agriculture and Environment, then to the President of Ghana and to the African nations and finally to the negotiators who will be gathering in Baku. So the idea is how can we amplify voices from people living on the frontline, what they think should be done and but also interestingly, what are some of the best practices they are already using to adapt to the changing climate? So we want people at the COP29 to listen to them, in the hope that will help to influence their decision making, to uplift their voices from the ground to Baku.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Caravan of Climate YouTube link: