2023-09-05 02:43:28
Heads of state and political representatives pose for a group photo at the official opening of the African Climate Summit in Nairobi on September 4, 2023. KHALIL SENOSI / AP
It was only to be an information meeting on the draft final declaration of the first African Climate Summit, Monday, September 4, in Nairobi. Alas, the text prepared by Kenya and the African Union secretariat was severely criticized by the environment ministers meeting behind closed doors in the evening, while the heads of state – who must adopt the declaration – were arrived a little earlier in the Kenyan capital. The declaration should define the common position of the 54 African countries in the climate negotiations, the next stage of which will take place in Dubai in December during the 28th conference of the parties to the United Nations convention on climate change (COP28).
While the summit should make it possible to display the unity of the continent in the fight against climate change, Monday’s meeting turned into a series of claims revealing major disagreements. A dozen countries took the floor, starting with the Comoros, which nevertheless holds the rotating presidency of the African Union. “We asked for the role of the oceans and the blue economy to be included in the text”regretted Houmed Msadié, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment.
Botswana complained that the issue of adaptation to climate change which is “the central subject” for the survival of millions of Africans is not put more clearly. And Egypt asked that the objective of doubling international funding dedicated to adaptation be included in the text. As for the environment minister of South Africa, Barbara Creecy, she declared that her country would not support “the call for a new global tax regime to fund large-scale climate action”. On this point, Nigeria also expressed reservations.
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But it was the Republic of Congo’s environment minister, Arlette Soudan-Nonault, who had the harshest words against a vaguely worded text that fails to concretely define the continent’s contribution and expectations to towards polluting countries. She points out in particular the absence of any reference to the ecosystem services rendered by the forests of the Congo Basin. “It is a text that commits the continent for COP28 and well beyond. We cannot accept a statement of which certain passages present the situation in such a shocking way for Africans”, she regretted. Zambia, which chairs the group of African negotiators, made the decision in a way familiar to COP regulars: “There is no consensus. »
At the podium, the Kenyan Minister of the Environment, Soipan Tuya, and the Commissioner for Agriculture of the African Union, Josefa Sacko, took the bronca and assured that the text would be revised to reflect the expectations of governments. . The lack of transparency in which the declaration was drawn up, it seems, has opened the door to all speculation. A first draft was indeed submitted in mid-August during the meeting of environment ministers in Addis Ababa so that it could be amended.
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“There cannot be two African positions”
Everyone was able to send their proposals to the African Union Secretariat. But the exchanges stopped there and the ministers belatedly discovered in Nairobi a final version which falls short of their expectations and even very far from the positions adopted until now. “There cannot be two African positions, the one written in Nairobi and those of our group of negotiators”, warns the Ethiopian minister. Some, subject to anonymity, wonder about the role played by the McKinsey firm to which President William Ruto turned for the organization of the summit.
A demonstration for action against climate change, in Nairobi, on September 4, 2023, during the Africa Climate Summit. BRIAN INGANGA / AP
An accusation that on the eve of the summit, several hundred civil society organizations did not hesitate to make in an open letter to the Kenyan president. They worried about the influence of the consulting firm and blamed it for pushing “the agenda pro-Western interests at the expense of Africa”.
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These organisations, which demonstrated in Nairobi on Monday, consider that the positive narrative of green growth promoted by William Ruto does not give enough space to the issue of access to electricity, which 600 million people still lack, and the adaptation of the most vulnerable populations. “Africa should not engage in false solutions. The continent is being ravaged by climate change and the carbon markets the summit wants to promote will not serve climate justice”warns Augustine Njamnshi, of the Pan-African Alliance for Climate Justice (Pacja).
Anyway, there are less than twenty-four hours left in Kenya to demonstrate that Africa can speak with one voice.
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