Why Africa must present its case in COP27 in Egypt

 By Mbazi Marisa

For the last two decades, climate change was a vague idea to the vast majority in Africa and the agenda seemed to belong and be governed by the Global North.

Increasingly, governments and surprisingly business leaders in the Global South recognise that the opposite is true. As a result, Global South has been sighted to claim its power on the table to hold the Global North systems accountable.

Despite the fact, that most African leaders have shown an appetite to rally on climate action, they have highly failed to tailor the climate crisis to African content. Hence climate action fails to address the in-depth indigenous threats.

With reference to the past 26 conferences of parties hosted on Global North, which consistently gathered all states that are parties to review the implementation of the convention and any other legal instruments that the conference of the parties (COP) adopts and take decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements, yet the Global South has failed to present their case to confidently bargain what they want out of them.

Six months ahead of COP27 – a climate change summit in 2022 - and immediately after COP15 on desertification, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation aims to inform and articulate Africa’s position in the global debate around climate change.

In the three-day forum, the foundation drove it by a fact and figures document providing the most recent and relevant data, analyzing the specific impact in Africa, the challenge of balancing access to energy and climate protection and Africa’s potential role in the global fight against climate change.

With the opening remarks of the first session that focused on the specific impact of climate change in Africa, the founder and chairman of the foundation Mo Ibrahim states; “As we now head towards COP 27 hosted on the continent, it is vital that Africa’s unique position is better understood and taken account to.”

The foundation gathered a panel of international experts and members of the Now Generation Network representing a coalition of young and mid-career Africans that are committed to moving the continent’s development agenda forward and shared their nuggets to unpack and share their in-depth thoughts on Africa’s vicious cycle: low resilience worsens and is worsened by climate change; what’s an acceptable trade-off between development and climate goals and Africa’s assets are key for globally sustainable future, provided the relevant conditions are met.

The International Crisis Group programme director for Africa Mr Murithi Mutiga said; “It is not true that Conflicts are brought by climate change, but rather climate change is an accelerator. It’s time for aid agencies to shift their focus to funding humanitarian projects but create funding for deliberate resilience-building in African countries.”

The statement rose a debate about whether Africa lacks funds or it is leadership challenge that hinders African countries to build climate-resilient infrastructure.

Responding to that, Mo Ibrahim fellow and member of Now Generation Network and Research Ms Natasha Kimani said; “It’s only the 28 percent of Africa’s population that really understands the science behind climate change, and this is a huge red flag. It’s time to ensure that we are not having top-level conservations only so that we accommodate the vast majority, at the local to the national level. Nonetheless, our leaders have chosen to be reactive and not proactive which is not sustainable. It’s my understanding that funding follows function and functions are governed by policies and day to day state operations and here is where the problem begins.”

On the other hand, a member of the Now Generation Network and an advocate for rule of law Ms Emilia Siwingwa agreed with the fact that leadership hinders the development of climate resilience and risk mitigation infrastructure in Africa.

“Climate change in Africa can be addressed when Africa needs to bring the inclusion message. As a matter of fact, since COP has started, Global South leaders plus their technical teams have failed to present Africa’s case by failing to understand the terms when negotiating. The basic terms are what are the benefits, the burden, and responsibilities? It’s time we go as a block and present our case as Africa and make sure each complexity of the African state is sighted and addressed,” she said.

On contrary, Mme Aïcha Bah Diallo the spokesperson of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation who is a former Minister for Education in Guinea said Mo Ibrahim Foundation has produced a tool that has facts and figures that the current generation can look up to it.

According to her, over six million people in Africa have no access to electricity, despite fact that more than 22 countries in Africa are currently using renewable energy which is not equally distributed.

“We can only speak about just transition once we have ensured gas storage, its equal distribution, and its affordability to African people. Mobilizing funds to respond to climate change in terms of loans is not ideal, loan means there’s an interest. This exposes the Global South to vulnerability hence its instability. Maybe it’s also the right time for the younger generation to go back to indigenous knowledge to help the indigenous farming communities by promoting agriculture. This shall reduce the migration of youth from rural to urban,” she said.

Nevertheless, the forum was rather an eye-opening experience for many. It unveiled how Africa can claim its power and become more intentional in the negotiation room at COP 27. It has highlighted a wide array of business opportunities and social ventures young Africans can major, in tackling climate change.

It has clearly stipulated that in this current era of industrialisation, “we need to start speaking about energy equity not only energy quality and equity. The energy and all other issues so long as COP 27 is concerned must be addressed in Africa’s case.”

In her closing remarks, the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed urged to seize the opportunities for COP27 to place the priorities of Africa at the centre of the global response to the climate crisis.

“The African COP must serve the new dome for African solutions developed by Africa for Africans.”