GODWIN NNANNA
African economies have made considerable progress in the last few years. But, as participants at the just-concluded World Economic Forum in South Africa , warns, this progress stands threatened in the medium and long term by climate change.
A crucial attempt at forging a continental front ahead of the December climate change conference in Copenhagen , Denmark , was made last month in Nairobi when environment ministers and civil society representatives from over 30 African countries met in the Kenyan capital. Also in attendance were representatives of the relevant UN agencies, Chinese government and other development partners from the west. Given the economic and humanitarian engagement of these non-African participants on the continent, their presence was crucial though it was essentially an African meeting.
The Nairobi declaration, as the fallouts of that meeting has come to be known, acknowledges that climate change is fundamentally different from the conventional environmental agenda where the practice has been to react and correct. One thing the participants seem unanimous about is the need to enhance Africa’s capacity to adapt; to strengthen local agricultural innovation systems particularly in high-potential areas. As the ministers agree, adaptation is not just an option, but a policy imperative. Without such a strategy Africa will be worse off.
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Eco-systems across the continent, many of which supply vital services for the livelihood of the poor, are heavily under pressure. Agriculture in low latitude African countries is especially vulnerable because climates of many of these countries are already too hot. Given that agriculture is undoubtedly the most important sector in the economies of most non-oil exporting African countries, this heightens the worry about increasing poverty in future at a time when other third world continents are consistently decreasing the ratio of the poor in their midst. Anything that touches agriculture touches the very survival of over 70 per cent of Africans.
Scientists have been typically surprised by the acceleration of some of the phenomena underlying these effects. Despite an already erratic climate, a recent report states that scientific research indicates new and dangerous extremes. The real danger, as participants at the just-concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) in South Africa acknowledge, is that changing climate threatens to undo some of the gains Africa has made at reducing poverty and to keep the continent perpetually poor. For the continent, therefore, climate change is not just a concern, it is a serious crisis; one that demands planned and sustained intervention.
The longer it procrastinates, the higher will be the human and financial costs, and the harder it will be to adapt. There lies the main challenge for the continent. It is also Africa’s main case at Copenhagen , as the fallouts of the Nairobi meeting suggest. Critical to Africa’s ability to adapt is funding. According to the United Nations, the continent would need at least $1 billion annually to manage the effects of climate change. Given that many African countries are unable to entirely fund their annual budgets on issues such as education and health, the continent would definitely need the support of the developed countries.
South Africa’s Environment Minister, Buyelwa Sonjika, who also heads the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), captured this challenge in a statement she made at the both the Nairobi meeting and at WEF in Cape Town. African governments must commit certain amounts from their budget, but you cannot commit what you don’t have. Africa expects the bigger carbon emitters to show stronger commitment to helping its adaptation efforts. If anything we want a stronger leadership from the developed world Sonjika said. Increased support to Africa , she maintains, should be based on priorities which include adaptation, capacity building, financing and technology development and transfer.
For Africa to effectively adapt to climate change, Araya Asfaw, director of the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre at Addis Ababa University , Ethiopia , believes the rules of the game must change in Copenhagen . In theory, the Kyoto Protocol which Capenhagen offers sub-Saharan Africa a way out of the poverty trap by promoting clean development with minimum environmental impact. But its financial incentives for doing so, especially the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), have not favoured it. Only a handful of projects on the continent get funding from the CDM and almost all of these are in South Africa.
If the tone of the meeting of the environment ministers’ meeting in Nairobi is anything to go by, some form of reparation is what Africa demands at Copenhagen . How well that will be received by the western participants remains to be seen. AMCEN’s argument, however, sounds reasonable. Africa’s total contribution to global climate change is less than 5 per cent, yet the continent suffers disproportionately from its effect. At Copenhagen, African leaders will be asking the big emitters – the United States, China and Europe to lead the way, not just in rhetoric but in helping developing nations militate and adapt to what has come to represent the biggest threat to the continued existence of their people, she said.
The United States and China are the world’s largest polluters, accounting for about half the world’s carbon emissions. But neither country was part of the Kyoto accord, which called on 37 countries to cut carbon emissions by a total of 5 percent below 1990 levels. With the George Bush era over, and an African-American now the president of the United States , Africa will expect President Barack Obama to think of the impact of America’s many years of foot-dragging on ordinary farmers in many agrarian communities like Kogelo village, his ancestral homeland in Nyanza province of Kenya .
Obama needs to take concrete action to reduce America’s emissions to avoid failure in Copenhagen . Getting the congress and the American public to agree to a new green future is the starting point. Climate watchers see this as very necessary for a planet-saving deal in Copenhagen . The US and Europe have a responsibility to lead in reducing their emissions, since they were largely responsible for the rise in atmospheric concentrations. Logically, this makes sense. It is heart-warming to know that Obama’s economic rescue package contains significant levels of green investment.
China , as the new biggest emitter and a very strong economic player in Africa, must also be ready to show leadership in Copenhagen . For Africa, success in Copenhagen would be defined by how ready the United States, China and the EU are to agree to a cap and trade accord that is realistic and takes into cognizance the apparent urgency, and how developing countries could be supported in their quest to mitigate and adapt.
African leaders will go to Denmark in December, hoping to have at the end a new CDM, (or whatever new name it might be called), that will make available four or five times what was set out in Kyoto for mitigation and adaptation projects, and which if well invested could help their continent develop rapidly with minimum human impact on the environment. This is the crux of the Nairobi Declaration. The Kyoto CDM disadvantaged the continent for a number of reasons. Africa hopes for change in Copenhagen .
While a non-level playing field is a major reason why there are not much CDM projects in Africa , political will and the attitude of the private sector also contributed. The private sector in Africa has low awareness about CDM because capacity-building activities had largely focused on governments and non-governmental institutions. Many have erroneously thought that CDM is more a source of donor funding than a market-based mechanism. By contrast, China , India and Brazil have seen CDM as a business opportunity, rather than development aid, and as a result they had far more CDM projects than in sub-Saharan Africa.
Furthermore, African business leaders need to see the opportunities that climate change present and develop innovative solutions. Africa offers a lot of room for clean energy exploitation, including solar, hydropower and geothermal power. Non-edible oils such as castor, rapeseed, jatropha or moringa could be used in rural areas instead of traditional fuels to meet household energy demands for cooking, lighting or even running water pumps. Plant oils could also help displace fossil fuels in the cement industry but, again, there is no mechanism for funding this through the CDM.
As African leaders look to the west for support in fighting climate change, Grace Machel, former first lady of South Africa , in one of the sessions at WEF, underscores the need for the right approach. It would be easy, when faced with the development crisis which now threatens Africa , to demand that the rest of the world ride to our rescue. After all, it is not the people of Africa who are responsible for the financial crisis devastating our economies or the climate change which has unleashed floods, droughts and storms on our land.
It is already clear however that, wherever the blame lies for the crisis, the main responsibility for reducing its impact on Africa lies with the continent’s own leaders. This does not mean the rest of the world can walk away. But without bold, focused and sustained leadership from Africa’s Governments, outside assistance won’t safeguard our people or protect the progress we have made. African business must also be an active part of the pact to make the continent work better for all its people.
