Sirte - Climate change will significantly impact on all facets of the continent's economic and social well-being, but particularly in agriculture and food security, says Environment and Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica.
"The impact of climate change is already manifesting itself in ever-increasing numbers of extreme events that we are experiencing in Africa such as droughts and floods."
Speaking to BuaNews in Sirte, Libya, at the 13th African Union Summit, the minister said Africa was least responsible for climate change, yet most vulnerable to its impact.
"The continent is also the least able to afford the costs of responding to and addressing climate change. African countries need to take decisive action," she said.
Climate change is one of Africa's biggest long-term challenges as desertification and drought devastate many rural areas. "We cannot place our long term development, competitiveness and survival on the altar, in the face of the additional climate change burden, by not taking action in the short and medium term."
Ms Sonjica, who heads the African Ministerial Committee on the Environment, presented a declaration at the summit on Africa's position on climate change. This document will be tabled at the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December.
She said Africa required a comprehensive international programme on adaptation, with massively upscaled finance, technology and capacity building to reduce vulnerability and build resilience of countries to immediate and future climate change impacts.
"The agreement calls for more finances and clean energy technology transfer as well as significant carbon emission cuts by developed countries," said the minister, who added that at this stage there had been no commitment on funds and that there were still conditions attached to that which had been promised.
The environmental ministers also want industrialised nations to cut emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020, below the 1990 levels.
The African ministers have also urged the G8 countries, which are meeting in Italy this week, to implement a recommendation to establish a regional centre for climate change in Africa.
"What we would like to see come out of Copenhagen is a deal that is fair, effective and efficient. There needs to be justice because as it stands, Africa contributes only 3.8 percent of the emission of the world so the rest of the world contributes much more.
"So anything that comes out of Copenhagen should really take into consideration that particular fact - that we are the victims," said Ms Sonjica.
She said developed countries had also called for a refund system, where those countries who were responsible for most of the climate change would reimburse developing nations.
Negotiations are still continuing on the matter.
However, Ms Sonjica said that her views differed slightly from other ministers. "I would really like to make funds available for Africa, to me that would be the best reward we can get."
She said it was about getting a fair deal for Africa, especially as Africa is "the lungs of the continent" with its many forests which help in mitigating the impact of climate change.
For Africa, she concluded, a successful outcome of discussions in Copenhagen is a matter of survival.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa may face water shortages by 2020.
It also estimates that up to $50 billion would be needed every year to cope with the effects of climate change in Africa.
