Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent. It is amazingly diverse culturally and geographically, rich in natural resources and now predominantly free (although still recovering) from centuries of European colonisation. It is, however, also stricken by poverty and home to those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Four years have now elapsed since the announcement by United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan of the Nairobi Framework at the 12th Session of the Conference of the Parties, where numerous UN agencies committed to increasing African participation in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). In those four years, the attention of the international climate community has been distracted from its