President of the Republic of Kenya, presiding at the meeting of the CAHOSCC

I welcome you all to the second meeting of the Committee this year. In Addis Ababa during the first meeting of the year in February, we reviewed the outcomes of COP30 and the declaration from the Second Africa Climate Summit (ACS 2).

In today's meeting, we look ahead and consider the common African positions for the upcoming COP 31 conference, to be held in Antalya, Türkiye. The discussions should also feed into the many related events taking place here in New York, in which I hope Africa will be actively represented.

Equally important is the Pre-COP session next month in Fiji, where several leaders have been invited. Again, it is important that Africa, especially its Small Island Developing Countries, remain fully engaged, given the focus on the unique challenges of SIDS.

A lot has also happened during the intersession period. The 4th Summit of the Congo Basin Climate Commission was held back to back with the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi last May, where the Blue Fund for the Congo Basin was launched, and a set of projects that connect forest protection with livelihoods, economic growth, and stronger regional resilience were endorsed for presentation to the Donor's Roundtable in Brazzaville.

In June the 11th Our Ocean Summit was held in Africa for the first time, and several sessions discussed the ocean-climate nexus, including the role of marine-Carbon Dioxide Removals (mCDR).

This afternoon, a number of delegations joined the High Level Clean Cooking event co-convened with Norway and the US Government in partnership with the International Energy Agency, the African Union Commission, and the African Development Bank. This is a matter that Africa must continue to champion and sustain its momentum. The 2nd Africa Clean Cooking Summit had to be rescheduled due to the threat of Ebola in parts of the continent, but a high-level virtual meeting in July was well attended, and the in-person Summit is planned for January 2027 in Nairobi.

The past several months have seen the world experience escalating chaos, from geopolitical tensions to wars and energy insecurity, even as climate change impacts grow more visible, more serious, and more costly. Indeed, climate change remains a central driver of instability, fuelling conflicts and migration, and reshaping economies and politics.

Last month tied with July 2023 as the joint-hottest 30-day period in recorded history, with the global average surface air temperature up 1.65°C, well beyond the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5°C. UNEP's report this month has warned that overshooting the 1.5C is 'unavoidable', pushing climate risks and impacts to increasingly dangerous heights.

The world is also bracing for a predicted super El Niño of unprecedented strength, forecast for the next few months until February next year. As always, Africa and other vulnerable countries will bear the most impacts.

At the same time, the energy crisis sparked by the war in Iran has placed energy security at the top of the climate agenda, making cooperation on renewables more urgent.

Hence, as climate risks reshape national and global agendas, it is urgent that Africa explores practical pathways and strategic opportunities that will support our economies.

The principal constraint remains finance. Climate finance is key for preparedness, for resilience building, and for climate action.

Yet, even in the face of that urgency, the world of development cooperation continues to shrink, with official development assistance reported to have fallen by 23% in 2025.

Africa should therefore rethink the continent's climate finance options, especially in light of replenishments of the Green Climate Finance (GCF) next year and the conclusion of the 9th replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in July, with the $3.9 billion initial pledges amounting to a decrease compared to the previous GEF-8 cycle of $5.33 billion. Africa needs to get actively involved in the replenishment debate and insist on developed countries meeting their obligations. As has been said many times, climate finance is not charity, and obligations under the Convention and the Paris Agreement must be met by all.

Of particular interest for Africa, especially as we prepare what has been billed as 'the African COP' in Addis Ababa next year, is the closing of the adaptation finance gap, estimated at between US$200 and US$400 per year. The tripling of the adaptation finance goal agreed last year in Belem must be actualised, and Antalya should correct the dismal performance last year, where the Adaptation fund realised about $138 million in pledges against a target of $300 million. Antalya should also translate Belem's commitment into a credible delivery pathway. Thus, the big deliverable for COP32 in Addis has to be adaptation.

In the face of a changing climate, the transition towards climate resilience and lower emissions is a global imperative. It is essential that we continue to push for comprehensive action to fix the finance system.

The Africa Climate Summits in Nairobi and Addis Ababa made a potent shift for the continent. Africa presented climate action as a solution for economic growth, which we called climate-positive growth, generating investment, creating quality jobs, and building national resilience.

Climate action should now be more about doing the work, and that means implementing the pledges that are on the table instead of making new ones. The processes of the UNFCCC need to be linked with what is happening in the real world.

This demands new thinking, the building of new alliances, and a renewed push for ambitious and achievable reforms.

Even the outcomes of related Multilateral Environmental Agreements are crucial for climate action.

For example the decisions from the just concluded COP17 of UN Convention to Combate Desertification (UNCCD) had positive elements. While the "drought protocol", pushed by developing countries, failed, the establishment of a $1.2billion Rangelands Flagship Initiative, as well as the formal recognition of pastoralists as "essential stewards" of rangeland ecosystems, and acknowledgement of "transboundary mobility" were positive developments.

In the face of a changing climate, as climate impacts and temperature records are regularly broken, climate risk is moving deeper into economic policymaking, and the transition towards climate resilience and low-carbon development is a global imperative.

We need to maintain the framing of climate change as captured in the Nairobi and Addis Ababa Declarations; that is, climate change as business, as investment opportunity, and as green competitiveness.

Africa is ready to act as the solution for climate change. We have what it takes and we are not locked into the legacy infrastructure that makes transitions elsewhere so costly. We can build green from the start, carrying forward the ambition of the Nairobi Declaration through the Global Green Industrialisation Agenda. Let us lead the way and remain fully engaged in the climate agenda.

And as we look towards COP32 in Addis Ababa, our objective should be clear that this should be an African COP centred on adaptation, implementation, investment, and climate-positive growth.