As African environmental Ministers converged in Mali to update the Africa common position on climate change before COP 17 in Durban, certain commentators noted that there is growing concern regarding the ability of the Africa Group Negotiators (AGN) to sustain a common negotiating position.

Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD) senior researcher Lesley Masters said that the ability to maintain an African position would be paramount in providing a platform from which to pursue the continent’s priorities on climate change.

To date, Africa’s common position has been guided by agreement that a legally binding pact under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is required, and also that the Kyoto Protocol requires leadership, and developed countries should provide this by ensuring that there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the Kyoto Protocol.

The common position also puts adaptation at the centre of the deal for Africa, particularly since the continent is expected to bear the brunt of climate change impacts, and has little (about 3% to 4%) of the world’s emissions to mitigate.

The AGN also called for developed nations to take on ambitious mitigation targets, and agreed on certain financing mechanisms and technology transfer.

It was agreed that these were very broad issues of convergence, and Masters added that the underlying tensions within the AGN have not received critical analysis – particularly the role of international organisations and their impact on the sustainability of Africa’s common position.

University of South Africa’s Exxaro chair in business and climate change Godwell Nhamo explained that Africa was not as homogenous as it looked on the map, and was, in some cases, “seriously divided”.

For example, South Africa, which forms part of the AGN, is the largest emitter in Africa and is also a part of the so called Basic grouping of the negotiations, which also included Brazil, India and China.

The AGN also included a number of oil producing and exporting countries, which had different interests, and on the other hand, countries such as Mauritius and the Seychelles, which formed part of the small island developing states.

A number of African countries were also least developed countries, which again had different interests at the negotiations.

What was agreed at the roundtable discussion hosted by the IGD, was that the United Nations system favoured dominant parties and Africa was often left out, owing to a lack of capacity to cover every aspect, or track of the negotiations.

More developed nations often had large delegations which could adequately monitor all sessions of the negotiations.

“Africa needs technical expertise. We are just too thin on the ground [at negotiations],” emphasised Nhamo.

He added that in his opinion, the AGN should remain as a strong negotiating bloc. As a grouping of 54 States, this could mean big differences between countries, but the weight of numbers was also a positive in negotiations.