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Odds against Africa’s united bid for carbon justice
17 December 2009, Daily Nation
URL: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/824086/-/view/printVersion/-/6ib1th/-/index.html
Nairobi: Only a day before the curtains fall on the two-week UN climate talks in Copenhagen, Africa seems certain to come out empty-handed. Despite a rare show of force and unity in any global negotiations, Africa, together with other developing countries, is at the precipice of seeing her efforts evaporate into thin air.
Over 45,000 delegates have converged in the Danish capital, hoping to strike a new deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which comes to an end in 2012, but so far the talks have been an anti-climax.
Developed countries are doing everything to prematurely end the Kyoto Protocol which requires 37 of them, excluding the US, to cut down on their carbon emissions while sparing the developing nations such a requirement. This was the latest bone of contention that clouded the talks on Monday when African participants, together with G77 countries plus China, staged a walkout to protest what they termed little attention to their concerns.
Leading up to the talks, a scandal, “Climategate”, was unearthed. Computers at the East Anglia University in the UK, which hosts the Climate Research Unit, were hacked. This gave climate sceptics a basis for dismissing the reality of climate change as email showing that important data behind climate change had been manipulated surfaced.
The host country, Denmark, curiously released a text within the opening of talks that sought to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new deal that would bring the US on board. In so doing, the proposal sought to effectively disadvantage developing countries by subjecting them to the same emissions cuts as their developed counterparts.
But developing countries are adamant that developed nations that have signed the protocol must commit to further emission cuts. The targets agreed upon are yet to be realised and neither have cash promises been fulfilled.
The whole climate debate has turned out to be an ideological contest between the leading polluters (developed countries) and the least polluters who are victims of global warming (developing countries). Although Africa is responsible for a mere 3 per cent of total global gas emissions, it is the most affected by effects of climate change. African negotiators are calling for carbon justice: that the continent must be given both financial and technological packages to adequately respond and adapt to the consequences of a warming earth fuelled by the developed world.
The drums of an epic clash between developing and developed countries had grown louder long before talks opened last week. Africa agreed to present a $65 billion annual bill to help her adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change over the next 20 years. Therefore, a clear financing mechanism to put the continent on a “green” development path and protect itself, in addition to renewed commitment by developed countries to further cut on emissions, is the key hope held by Africa in Copenhagen.
The European Union last week announced a $3.6 billion annual package until 2012 to help poorer nations combat global warming before a new treaty being negotiated comes into effect. The bloc also promised to lower its emissions by 30 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020, on condition that other leading polluters follow suit. Though outwardly a positive gesture, the move sought to kill two birds with one stone: scuttle any strong African case for more money and circumvent poor countries’ demands that developed countries cut emissions by 40 per cent.
Such developments, coupled with the Danish text and the “Climategate” affair, have effectively clouded key urgent issues of the Copenhagen talks, namely: agreeing on level of cuts from developed countries; target date for emissions to peak and begin to fall and the shape of any future deal to be hammered.
This leaves developing countries, in a tight corner. Poor nations have only succeeded in doing one thing: vanishing the perception that the negotiations were going to a clear-cut affair where their presence would amount to nothing.
More than 120 heads of state and prime ministers have joined the negotiators hoping to sign a political commitment to affirm their willingness to further engage beyond the talks. But beyond demanding financial support from the developed world, African countries should use their own resources to do the right thing. It is not enough blaming the West when we are busy contributing to climate change.
The forest destruction frenzy we have witnessed in Kenya must end. Each citizen must take responsibility, not calling on the government to intervene while knowingly committing environmental sins.
By SAMMY CHEBOI
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