Congo – Ms. Arlette Soudan-Nonault, Minister of the Environment, Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin

As Technical Coordinator of the Congo Basin Climate Commission, you are preparing the Summit of the world's three largest forest basins. What are your concrete expectations for this event?

The central challenge of the Summit "Amazonia/Borneo-Southeast Asia and Mekong/Congo, Summit of the three basins of biodiversity ecosystems and tropical forests" which will be held in Brazzaville on October 26, 27 and 28 is to constitute, through the union of the three basins, a global alliance, of biodiversity ecosystems and tropical forests, an Alliance/Coalition with strictly South-South governance, structuring the three global ecosystems which represent 80% of tropical forests throughout the world, bring together 2/3 of terrestrial biodiversity and ensure the vital role of global regulator of the carbon balance and life on earth. The three basins should capture 80% of the existing and future financial mobilization announced at COP 27 for the climate and COP 15 for biodiversity. This global alliance of the three basins will constitute a legitimate force for proposals and negotiations within multilateral climate and biodiversity bodies.

The Summit has six strategic objectives:

– define and adopt the broad outlines of a global governance scheme through a cooperation agreement between the three basins and the formation of a global alliance of the three basins;

– develop a common strategy, with a work programme and a portfolio of investment projects with a view to anticipating and preparing funding requests from existing and future funding mechanisms;

– sign financing agreements with multilateral and bilateral donors, global philanthropy and develop financial mechanisms with the private sector, notably with the creation of a sovereign carbon market to ensure sustainable financing of the three basins;

– create a platform for sub-regional and intercontinental scientific and technical cooperation and strengthen capacities in the three sub-regions;

– break down the barriers between climate and biodiversity issues, which are closely linked to the scale of ecosystem issues, and reconcile environmental law arising from the Kunming-Montreal Agreement and climate law arising from the Paris Agreement;

– to constitute a legitimate proposal and negotiation organization of reference within the multilateral climate and biodiversity bodies. Achieving the objectives requires the adoption in Brazzaville of guidelines that structure the political and strategic vision of the Alliance/Coalition of the three basins, the founding principles of which will be adopted by the stakeholders at the Summit and which will be the subject of the declaration of the Heads of State and Government of the three basins. It is therefore fundamental that these principles and the texts that will define them be the subject of a broad consultation of all stakeholders in the three basins in order to benefit from their contributions, their adhesion and their approval in order to guarantee their implementation and results.

Should North-South cooperation be revived? Is the European Union's participation important?

North-South cooperation seems essential to us to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement, in particular maintaining the temperature increase at 1.5 degrees Celsius. The commitments in terms of compensation from the more polluting northern countries to the southern countries, which are good students in terms of mitigation and therefore less polluting, have not yet been respected. It should be noted that the summit of "Amazonia/Borneo-Southeast Asia and Mekong/Congo, Summit of the three basins of biodiversity ecosystems and tropical forests" will bring together several categories of participants and among these are the financial partners: The Fortune "500" and philanthropic organizations; Multilateral donors; Financial markets, whose support is necessary for the successful organization of the Summit. The participation of the European Union is important and will be done through the scientific community which will be represented by the members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and national climate and biodiversity experts from the States involved (such as the French department of Guyana which is part of the Amazon basin), as well as representatives of tropical forest research and training institutions located in North America (Canada and the USA), Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

In the Congo Basin, who should receive carbon credits? Projects or countries?

Climate change is accelerating, and pressure is mounting on countries and businesses to effectively implement the Paris Climate Agreement.

The demand for carbon credits from African countries is becoming increasingly pressing. Africa and its private sector are not benefiting at all from the carbon market. Yet, Africa, home to the world's second largest ecological hub and vast carbon-absorbing and carbon-storing ecosystems (forests, mangroves, and peatlands), currently receives only 111,300 million of the world's carbon offsets.

The Congo Basin, with its vast tropical forests, sits on an economic goldmine, a green windfall thanks to its still-underexploited carbon credit potential. To this end, these countries should benefit from both offsets and carbon credits. Hence the development by the Economic Commission for Africa of the standardized and harmonized protocol on greenhouse gases to promote the integrity of the carbon market and investments in climate-resilient economic activities in the member countries of the Congo Basin Climate Commission. In most carbon projects, revenues from the sale of carbon credits are shared equitably among the beneficiaries (the project leader and the local communities, and, where possible, the State). This sharing is based on the principles defined within the framework of the benefit-sharing mechanism.

What is your strategy regarding the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)?

The Republic of Congo, in accordance with the provisions of the Paris Agreement ratified on April 21, 2017, revised its first NDC in 2021 and submitted the revised document to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on August 2, 2021.

The Republic of Congo, although part of the group of developing countries with low greenhouse gas emissions, intends to contribute to the global effort by increasing its ambition in the fight against climate change.

The strategy adopted for the revision of this NDC was based on 5 pillars:

– Strengthening the political will and support of national stakeholders and development partners;

– The review, alignment and updating of objectives, policies and measures established in the areas of climate and sustainable development;

– The integration of new sectors and/or greenhouse gases into the revised NDC;

– Assessment of the costs and investment possibilities of the priority actions selected in the areas of climate and sustainable development;

– Monitoring progress and strengthening transparency.

The Republic of Congo improved its NDC by expanding the scope of sectors subject to mitigation and adding the forestry sector, which had not been considered in the previous submission in 2015. Thus, the sectors retained were:

– energy with the energy production sub-sectors;

– transport;

– households and services;

– industrial processes and product use (PIUP);

– agriculture;

– forestry and other land uses; 

– waste.

According to the revised NDC, the level of reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be 56,91% in 2025 and 54,66% in 2030, of which 51,69% and 47,50% respectively require international support (conditional scenario). With the support of the French Development Agency (AFD) under the Adapt'Action program, the Republic of Congo, in December 2022, developed the action plan for implementing the revised NDC. This action plan includes mitigation measures; mitigation and adaptation measures for the forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector; adaptation measures; cross-cutting measures.

As you can see, the Republic of Congo, a very low greenhouse gas emitter, is doing more than its share in the global fight against global warming. Our demand for climate justice is all the more well-founded.