During the Africa seventh assessment outline scoping meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Nairobi, Environment and Climate Change Principal Secretary Festus Ng’eno urged for greater representation of African experts on the panel.
Ng’eno emphasized the need for more African representation due to the continent’s vulnerability to climate change.
He pointed out that only 11% of authors of the IPCC assessment report are from Africa despite the continent being one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Ng’eno praised the IPCC for its reports, citing that they were unbiased, regular, and informative.
However, he observed that lack of awareness of IPCC processes, limited funding for research, and prohibitive publishing costs were major setbacks to the process.
Ng’eno challenged the scientists to find solutions to the challenges, and he hoped that the meeting would generate solutions that could be implemented to curb some of these challenges.
The PS advised the IPCC scientists to embrace collaboration with sectors that consume their output and cautioned against top-down dissemination of research findings.
He also emphasized that climate change adaptation was urgent for Africa due to its vulnerability and called for a special IPCC on adaptation indicators.
Ng’eno said that a special report on adaptation indicators would support Africa to adequately push for the operationalization of the Global Goal on Adaptation.
The African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES), led by George Wamukoya, convened the meeting, among others.
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