African countries adopted Wednesday a united front on climate change, as efforts get underway to negotiate a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, an Algerian official said.

`There is a joint African position,` said Abdelkader Messahel, Algeria`s minister for African affairs after a meeting here of environment ministers from nearly 50 African countries.

`Africa intends and wants to speak with one voice` at climate change meetings next month in the Polish city of Poznan and next year in Copenhagen, he said.

The UN Climate Change Conference is to be held in Copenhagen at the end of next year, after a preparatory meeting in Poznan in December.

The 190 countries party to the UN Convention on Climate Change are trying to negotiate by then a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, further reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The African platform in particular calls for a reform and expansion of the so-called Clean Development Mechanism, which allows businesses in developed countries to offset carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by investing in `green` projects in the developing countries, such as renewable energy schemes or reforestation.

African countries have received only about two percent of investment under the mechanism, according to Algerian Environment Minister Cherif Rahmani, although the continent has been hard hit by climate change.