Minister George attends CAHOSCC meeting

Minister George attends meeting of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change, taking place on the margins of the 38th African Union Summit In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 15 February 2025 

14 February 2025 

The Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dr Dion George, will attend the annual Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC) on 15 February in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The meeting, where Heads of State/Government consider climate issues of strategic importance to the Continent, is taking place on the sidelines of the 38th African Union (AU) Summit.

The CAHOSCC was established in 2009 by the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government to spearhead African Common Position on Climate Change and to ensure that Africa speaks with one voice in global climate change negotiations. The CAHOSCC coordinates climate-related decisions and programmes, including those related to climate finance and resource mobilisation, and champions critical sustainable development issues for the African Continent.

The African Continent is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, despite only contributing a small fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The CAHOSCC has been consistently advocating for various issues in the battle against climate change, in line with its mandate as enshrined in the 2009 decision of the 13th Session of the AU Assembly, held in Sirte, Libya. These issues are elaborated in the AU’s Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan, which is intended to enhance socio-economic development as well as the well-being of the Continent’s populations while also adapting to climate change and contributing to its mitigation amongst other issues.

“Africa has limited capacity to adapt to the impacts of climate change as well as to mitigate against and recover from natural disasters such as droughts, floods and other extreme weather-induced events which are becoming more frequent. It is therefore incumbent on all of us Africans to take the lead in dealing with climate change,” said Dr George.

The CAHOSCC meeting on 15 February 2025 will consider the report of the Coordinator of CAHOSCC (Kenya), with a focus on the outcomes of the 29th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 29) held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2024, and the implications of these for Africa, the report of the extraordinary meeting of CAHOSCC held on the margins of the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York, on 25 September 2024, updates from the Africa Climate Commissions, operationalisation of the Africa Climate Summit outcomes, the outcomes of the 12th conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa as well as a status report on the implementation of the African Union Commission’s climate change frameworks, programmes and initiatives. The CAHOSCC meeting will also consider and submit a draft decision on key climate change issues for adoption by the AU Assembly.

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