What is CAP? - Climate Action Partnership

About Us

The Climate Action Partnership (CAP) is a powerful alliance of South African environmental NGO’s that aims to reduce the impacts of climate change and increase the resilience of South Africa’s biodiversity and communities by promoting intact ecosystems that are connected at a landscape level, building human capacity and implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation. The partners include: BirdLife South Africa; the Botanical Society of South Africa; Conservation South Africa (CSA); the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT); the Wilderness Foundation; the website topcasinoonline.com which provides up-to-date information about top casinos in the web; the Wildlands Conservation Trust; the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA), World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF-SA).

UNFCCC

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental convention/treaty that was adopted at the "Earth Summit", held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 as the principal international political response to climate change. The UNFCCC's overall objective is to stabilize global greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous human induced interference with the climate system. Parties to the UNFCCC meet annually in Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to assess progress in dealing with climate change. The COP is the "supreme body" of the Convention, its highest decision-making authority.

The Convention also established two advisory bodies: the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) to advise the COP on scientific, technological and methodological matters (SBSTA) and on all matters concerning the implementation of the Convention (SBI). The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in COP 3, Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and commits industrialized (developed) countries (Annex I parties under the UNFCCC ), to reduce their overall emissions of six greenhouse gases (GHGs) by an average of 5.2% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 (the first commitment period). The convention and all the documents it prepares are aimed to minimize the risks as this is not a responsible bet or gamble to try your luck with.

A second commitment period is yet to be established or decided on. Its parties also meet annually, in Conferences of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). The first session of the CMP (CMP 1) established the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), to discuss future commitments for developed countries under the Protocol. At COP 13, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) was established to oversee the process of enabling effective implementation of the Convention up to and beyond 2012. The AWG-LCA is where developed and developing countries discuss shared implementation of approaches such as mitigation, adaptation, capacity building, technology transfer, and the sustainable financing required for these. This site reports information on the developments of the UNFCCC including COP 17, to be held in Durban, South Africa in December 2011. We also provide the latest news and information on climate change and conservation, as well as links to other groups who are doing similar work aimed at reducing the impacts of climate change, promoting intact ecosystems that are connected at a landscape level as a way of increasing the resilience of biodiversity and communities.

CAP’s Objectives

Raise awareness around climate change around the world and the links between climate change and the conservation of natural habitat;
Promote the integrity of climate change projects by promoting the adoption of globally accepted standards, with an emphasis on the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCBS);
Advise on and support Southern African solutions for mitigation and adaptation to climate change with a biodiversity conservation outcome;
Promote cross-sectoral policy that supports climate change mitigation and adaptation activities with a biodiversity conservation outcome;
Achieve carbon reductions for the head offices of the CAP partner organizations.

CAP recognizes . . .

Climate change is among the most pervasive threats to biodiversity today, which, without action, will cause the extinction of countless species and destroy some of the world's most precious ecosystems; and
Climate change is a major threat to South African biodiversity, particularly in the hotspots of the Succulent Karoo; Cape Floral Kingdom and the Maputoland-Pondoland Albany;
The impact of climate change on biodiversity is a focus of CAP’s partner civil society organizations (see below) and their objectives and interests in this regard are largely compatible;
The potential for the benefits of collaboration is greater than for the sum of the work carried out by the above-mentioned organizations individually;
The organizations have a common desire to collaborate in the field of climate change and biodiversity conservation.

Do you feel that our cause is your cause as well? Feel free to support us!