KIGALI: African nations at the sharp edge of climate change must unite in talks to strike a new deal in Denmark at the end of 2009 on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a conference heard said.

"In the forthcoming negotiations African leaders should speak with one voice," former Irish President Mary Robinson told the two-day African Climate Change Forum in Rwanda.

"This bargaining power will get the West to commit on targets of carbon emission reductions and to fund adaptation and mitigation programs in the developing world."

Drought, desertification and changing weather patterns are being increasingly seen across Africa, fuelling poverty and conflict. Experts attribute this in part to global warming, and campaigners complain that Africa is paying most after contributing least to global pollution.

"Africa has many challenges but uniting to come up with clear demands on what it wants from the West, the biggest contributors of carbon emissions, should not be a problem," Robinson added in Kigali.

Simon Deitz, deputy director at the London-based Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said Africans must start adapting fast to climate change.

"Coffee farmers, for instance, should adapt to the climatic change by turning to drought-resistant coffee varieties," he said. "The effects should be minimised."

On Wednesday, Rwanda's President Paul Kagame also called for mitigation measures such as population control, tree-planting and better water preservation.