January 18th, 2016 - On 12 December 2015, the international community concluded a 6-year negotiation track, which culminated in the adoption of the ambitious Paris Agreement. The main resolve of the agreement, as spelled out in Article 2, is to further strengthen the global response to climate change "by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels".  Most importantly for stakeholders in the climate change and clean technology sector in Africa, the agreement provides a strong framework and mandate for enhanced action on climate change.

Now that the dust from COP21 has started to settle the ball is in the court of national governments and non-state actors in Africa to continue the momentum that has been built up in Paris and implement the vision that has been created at the international level. Governments, businesses, NGO's, research institutions, financial institutions and civil society in Africa should all work together to seize the opportunity provided by the Paris Agreement and scale up real climate actions on the ground

As a first step of engagement with this ground breaking development, our Carbon Africa team present at the COP has prepared a summary of key points in the shape of a briefing note in order to ease the digestion of the overall agreement and we look forward to supporting the various organizational responses in 2016

2016 01 18 Briefing on Paris Agreement