The backdrop for this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference was a continent still suffering from multi-year droughts and record-high levels of hunger.

The “Koronivia work programme” gave agriculture and food security, which were feared to be at risk of being dropped from the climate talks’ agenda, a greater mandate and a four-year new lease on life. Additionally, the first food-systems pavilion at a COP (Conference of Parties) was held in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Hundreds of delegates lined up to see incoming Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (often known as “Lula”), who pledged “zero deforestation” by 2030 elsewhere at COP27. Colombia and Venezuela proposed resuming the 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation during a side event at COP27, a deal between Brazil, Bolivia, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela to promote environmental cooperation.

How Kenya is set to benefit from the Climate Change Conference

Kenya has announced plans to employ green energy throughout Africa by signing a contract with an Australian business to construct a green hydrogen and ammonia plant.

It will be essential to generate green hydrogen and ammonia on a massive scale in order to provide Africa with clean, affordable fuel and fertiliser. Additionally, it will help Kenya, which is already leading Africa’s geothermal revolution, increase its presence in the renewable energy sector.

The agreement between Kenya and Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), a company with a broad portfolio of green hydrogen and renewable energy projects worldwide, was signed just before the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that took place in Egypt.

Kenya is one of seven African nations that would benefit from the production of carbon credits in order to preserve biodiversity and create jobs. This will be done through the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), a 13-member steering group made up of African leaders, CEOs, and carbon credit specialists, which was established at COP27 and will be in charge of managing the project. As part of voluntary carbon market activation efforts, Malawi, Gabon, Nigeria, Togo, and Kenya indicated their desire to collaborate with ACMI to expand the output of carbon credits.

President William Ruto unveiled an ambitious goal last month to increase the country’s tree cover from 12.13 percent to 30 percent in the following 10 years. At a cost of $500 million, President Ruto said: “We propose to do this by first planting 15 billion trees on around 10.6 million hectares of land throughout the country.

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa worked together to establish the ACMI proposal at COP27, and Mahmoud Mohieldin and Nigel Topping provided support.

At the COP27 launch ceremony for the programme, ACMI released the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative Roadmap report: Using carbon markets to benefit Africa. In order to promote the expansion of voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) on the continent, the paper identifies 13 action plans. With African credits retiring at a 36 percent annual rate over the previous five years, voluntary carbon markets are already growing quickly, but to maintain this pace of growth in the coming decades, significant work will be required.

In conclusion, through the five-year action plan on Action for Climate Empowerment and the intermediate review of the Gender Action Plan, in particular, the decisions made underscore once again how crucial it is to give all stakeholders the tools they need to participate in climate action. All Parties will be able to collaborate in addressing participation imbalances thanks to these results, which will also give stakeholders the resources they need to promote more extensive and inclusive climate action across the board.