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OAKLAND, California, Sep 13 (IPS) – Within the wake of the latest Africa Local weather Summit, which convened in Nairobi from September 4-6, 2023, the world’s consideration was drawn to the urgent challenges dealing with the African continent because it grapples with the devastating results of local weather change.
Accounting for lower than 4 % of worldwide emissions, Africa is owed a big local weather debt by historic polluters, but has obtained solely 12 % of the US$300 billion in annual financing it wants to deal with climate-related challenges.
The three-day Summit culminated within the adoption of the Nairobi Declaration, which articulates the shared place of African international locations as they put together for the upcoming COP28 local weather change. Reflecting the deep historic injustices which have left the continent disproportionately susceptible to worsening local weather shocks, the declaration requires “a brand new financing structure that’s conscious of Africa’s wants,” together with debt restructuring and aid, in addition to a “carbon tax on fossil gasoline commerce, maritime transport and aviation, which will even be augmented by a world monetary transaction tax.”
Nevertheless, these requires justice ring hole when analyzing the investments and initiatives truly prioritized on the Summit, revealing a putting paradox. In the course of the gathering, the agenda primarily revolved across the enlargement of carbon markets – a harmful and false local weather resolution that opens up the continent to inexperienced colonialism and reinforces the established order of North/South energy imbalances.
Lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} have been pledged to this extractive and speculative system, turning a blind eye to the truth that carbon offsets have spectacularly failed to scale back emissions and have a troubling historical past of triggering evictions, decimating livelihoods, and exacerbating environmental hurt in Africa, as outlined in a latest report by the Oakland Institute.
In one of many occasion’s most anticipated offers, buyers from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) dedicated to buy US$450 million price of carbon credit from the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI). Local weather Asset Administration – a three way partnership of HSBC and local weather funding agency Pollination – additionally introduced a US$200 million funding in initiatives that produce ACMI credit.
Launched at COP27 by the International Vitality Alliance for Folks and Planet, Sustainable Vitality for All, The Rockefeller Basis, and UN Financial Fee for Africa, ACMI fingers disproportionate management of Africa’s carbon markets to rich international locations and oil pursuits, permitting polluters to proceed emitting with impunity whereas Africa provides them with carbon credit. As an alternative of serving the pursuits of the African continent, the monetary pledges made through the Summit threaten to exacerbate present inequalities and additional extractivism.
Nevertheless, heads of state and leaders celebrated these investments, advancing the flawed perception that carbon markets symbolize a viable supply of local weather financing. Kenyan President William Ruto described carbon sinks as an “unparalleled financial goldmine,” whereas European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen pitched “true carbon credit” as a “resolution that will unlock large sources for local weather motion in Africa.”
US Particular Presidential Envoy for Local weather John Kerry equally declared that “Africa wants a thriving carbon market as a device to battle the local weather disaster.” Opposite to those assertions, carbon markets primarily profit overseas builders and monetary intermediaries – rich people, companies, and organizations primarily based within the International North – with host international locations and native communities usually solely receiving a small fraction of the revenues generated.
Whereas the Africa Local weather Summit was dominated by false options, the breakthrough got here within the type of the choice Actual Africa Local weather Summit, which introduced collectively over 500 civil society teams – showcasing the facility and vibrancy of the African local weather motion.
In response to the failings of the official Summit, civil society teams organized an alternate Folks’s Meeting and March, which catalyzed conversations and collaboration amongst grassroots actions, farmer organizations, Indigenous communities, activists, and faith-based actors.
The end result of this counter-mobilization is the African Folks’s Local weather and Improvement Declaration, which supplies a imaginative and prescient for African local weather motion that’s way more bold than the Nairobi Declaration. Centered round African options, local weather justice, and a people-centered strategy, the Folks’s Declaration outlines the actual options African leaders should demand on the upcoming COP28 and past.
These embrace a redefinition of improvement away from perpetual development, people-centered renewable vitality, agroecology and meals sovereignty, ecosystem safety and restoration, a socially simply transition away from fossil fuels, and the dismantling of transnational companies’ energy.
Addressing the local weather emergency can not come on the expense of those that contributed the least to it. Nor can or not it’s tackled with the identical extractive and neocolonial system that created it within the first place.
As we transfer ahead in direction of COP28 in Dubai, African nations should reject false local weather options that give up management over their pure sources to rich international locations within the International North.
As an alternative, African leaders should hearken to the calls of civil society and prioritize real options that pave the best way for a simply transition and prioritize the well-being of African folks.
Eve Devillers is a Analysis Affiliate on the Oakland Institute, an unbiased coverage assume tank bringing recent concepts and daring motion to essentially the most urgent social, financial, and environmental problems with our time. www.oaklandinstitute.org
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