We the Civil Society Organisations under the umbrella of the International Network for Sustainable Energy (INFORSE East Africa) coordinated by SusWatch Kenya, TaTEDO - Centre for Sustainable Energy Services, Tanzania, and Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development would like to share our position ahead of the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), due to take place in November 2021, in Glasgow, UK.

This position flags out the following priority issues that we think negotiators at COP26 must take into account in their deliberations, as they have a direct effect on climate action in East Africa that is under threat from extreme weather stresses including drought, floods, Locusts etc. These include climate finance, adaptation, mitigation, as well as issues failed at the COP25 negotiations in Madrid in 2019 that were pushed to COP26.

We, therefore, urge the UNFCCC Parties to grab the historical opportunity, learning from the mistakes of the past, and lead the way to a safe, sustainable 100% renewables future for the Earth. It is technically possible to shift from the fossil era to renewables while sustaining economic growth. There is a need to implement the already committed pathway.

Climate Finance

The commitment for developed country parties to annually mobilize climate finance of 100 USD billion by 2020 to developing countries is critical to enabling action and sustaining trust in international cooperation. Developed countries are yet to meet the above climate finance goal.

We call on developed countries to come forward with a clear delivery plan for the promised $500 billion of balanced climate finance for adaptation and mitigation for developing countries for the 5-year period (2020 to 2024) prior to setting the new climate finance goal. The priority of funding for climate adaptation is important to correct the large-scale imbalance and gap of funding for adaptation and resilience, as our countries suffer on the front- line of climate change. International climate finance shall be new and additional, i.e., additional to Official Development Assistance (ODA) flow commitments.