The tenth special session of the Africa Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN), held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire in the first week of this month, has brought into sharp focus the urgency facing the African continent and the world to respond to the climate crisis.
Themed “Reclaiming Africa’s Lands: Innovative Pathways to Reducing Land Degradation, Desertification, and Drought”, the Abidjan meeting explored the various approaches needed to sustain the momentum around conserving existing ecosystems and reclaiming degraded landscapes, securing livelihoods, and building a more resilient future, in line with Africa’s 2063 Agenda.
Coming just two months before the annual COP29 climate summit, in Baku, Azerbaijan this November, the Abidjan meeting could not have been more timely. Even as it is caught in the throes of land degradation challenges that have adversely affected agriculture for millions, the continent continues to be disproportionately affected by climate impacts despite its insignificant greenhouse gas emissions.
And, to make matters worse, those same, long-suffering people are disadvantaged in accessing and attracting international climate finance and fair global trade. African governments spend up to 15 per cent of GDP annually to respond to climate change impacts. They are diverting up to 9 per cent of budgetary resources to cope with extreme weather while grappling with debt distress, thus facing difficult trade-offs between climate action and meeting critical development needs.
As I listened to speaker after speaker call for urgent, meaningful and just actions during the AMCEN meeting, I wondered what the future of this great continent would look like if we do not succeed in addressing the twin threats of a looming climate catastrophe and a debilitating financial crisis.
Let me paint the grim picture for you. First, the climate crisis is ringing loud alarm bells, with 2024 on course to be one of the hottest years on record. Second, greenhouse gas concentrations have surpassed 420 parts per million of carbon dioxide, driving global warming towards a dangerous 2.7°C increase by century's end. And, three, the first Global Stocktake has reaffirmed the inadequacies of actions to cut carbon emissions and support the affected.
Clearly, there is need for urgent and enhanced action, with developed countries taking the lead, to close the gaps in implementing current climate policies. They also need to do much more to prevent severe impacts on lives, ecosystems and economies.
But that financing must not pay lip service to the particular and emergent needs of African countries. The continent is shouldering an unsustainable debt burden, which in recent years has resulted in high costs of capital and increasing use of non-concessional finance instruments that hinder African countries from achieving their climate and development goals.
From Morocco to Madagascar, Somalia to Senegal and every country in between, the current financial instruments provided to developing countries are increasing debt stress, which partly explains why the share of loans to Africa in total official development assistance in 2022 increased by 29 per cent.
This is unsustainable, and as President William Ruto has repeatedly urged, an ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal framework should address the quality of the finance instruments and their relative contribution to the quantum, with a clear focus for public grant finance, if Africa is to crawl out of this debt hole.
These are not abstract hypotheses. They are immediate, scientifically guided needs. Indeed, the United Nations Environment Programme notes that the annual needs for adaptation finance are approximately $400 billion, and raises concerns on the limited resources provided. At the Glasgow climate summit in 2021, even the low ambition of doubling such limited resources by 2025 has not been fulfilled.
So, when Africa says Baku must deliver an ambitious finance outcome, it means that the UAE Framework on Global Climate Resilience needs to be translated into actions that deliver on agriculture, water, health, biodiversity, infrastructure and human settlements.
It also means that the fund for addressing loss and damage needs to be fully operationalised and resourced. The just transition work programme should also reflect the priorities of Africa, in particular opportunities for clean energy generation and green industrialisation, while addressing barriers in the global trade and international financial systems.
And this, to the millions of Africans caught on the horns of an existential climate catastrophe, is the only just and equitable way out.
Mr Mohamed is the chair of the African Group of Climate Change Negotiators and Kenya’s special envoy on climate change
