WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE FUTURE IS RESERVED FOR COUNTRIES OF THE CONGO BASIN

In a joint report of the project called “Climate Change Scenarios for the Congo Basin” by GIZ, CSC and WUR of the Netherlands published on the 8th of January calls for more vigilance in this zone.

The Congo forests are extreme importance for storing carbon and mitigating of the effect global warming to balance the equation. Because of lack of quantifiable data in the Congo Basin, the International Climate Initiative (ICI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) sponsored the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH to implement the project “Climate Change Scenarios for the Congo Basin” aimed at providing the Congo Basin countries and leaders good climate change predictions that can allow them adapt their resilience strategies for natural resources such as water, forest and agriculture.

Logging in Cameroon, dozens of these logs head to Douala from the East region of Cameroon every day.

The 1.530.000€ project started in 2010 ran for 3 years.  GIZ, the Climate Service Centre (CSC) in Hamburg, Germany and the Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR) were the main players.They divided the tasks into research and facilitating transfer of results to the different parties concerned.

After collecting and analyzing Data from 77 different climate change projections from global and regional models, the experts think climate change is likely to have a negative impact on development in Africa. A situation that earlier in 2014, findings from a KU Leuven study in Africa had revealed that in 2050 Central Africa will have an average of 1.4 °C hotter than today as a result of global greenhouse gas emissions. They equally added, deforestation will add an extra 0.7 °C to that figure.

Because the predictions indicate an eminent increase in rainfall, the experts believe the Congo Basin nations should take note of floods in the central and western zones, but also advise them to take this opportunity to increase on their productivity in electricity and agriculture since precipitation abundance will favour both. However, they are invited equally to exploit other sources of energy like solar powered system.

 The projections also say there will generally be low emission scenarios, 46 of the analysis confirm this and Countries of this zone are challenged to maintain a stable growth in their emission because an increase concentration of CO2 might favor forest growth. At last, the experts forecast a favorable GDP for the nations but warn farmers to regularly practice mixed cropping to prevent easy soil wash off by the frequent run offs and the decision makers to promote agroforestry reforestation to prevent forest degradation, as well as laying more emphasis on capacity building.

In response to this recommendations, The Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC) increased their budget for 2015/2016 by 98, 707, 679 FCFA on the occasion of the eighth session of the Council of Ministers of COMIFAC that took place in Bujumbura, Republic of Burundi on January 16, 2015. However, the Ministers of this body congratulated Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea for their punctuality with contributions and then discussed the situation of conservation and protected networks in Africa as well as bring to table the faith of conferences and other platforms of trainings and decision making.