Africa’s needs overlooked at COP28

Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday December 19, 2023 09:45

MAUN: The deal that emerged on Wednesday from the two week-long climate talks in Dubai has been hailed as a big win on “phasing down” unabated fossils, but it is not exactly what African negotiators were pushing for.

The call for a fossil fuel “phase out”, not “phase down” was heavily backed by protesters and campaigners as an urgent climate action, with the push having garnered electrifying momentum at Expo City 2020, the host venue for the just ended United Arab Emirates Conference of Parties (COP) climate talks.

The use of “phase down” in the outcome is interesting and another phrase worth underlining is “unabated” fossils. A good contextualisation of the term is provided by Carbon Brief, who describe unabated fossils as “fossil fuels produced and used without interventions that substantially reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted throughout the life cycle; for example, capturing 90 percent or more carbon from power plants, or 50-80 percent of fugitive methane emissions from energy supply”.

Energy and climate experts have however quickly slammed the COP28 outcome as another historic failure in climate talks.

“It (the outcome) relies on unproven and expensive technologies of carbon capture and sequestration, and carbon dioxide removal that are designed to extend the life of the fossil fuel industry,” observed Fadhel Kaboub, a senior advisor on Climate, Finance and Just Transition at Power Shift Africa.

One cannot agree more with his pragmatism as the language clearly states there is no deal on phasing out fossil fuels, but rather just diction so that world leaders appear to care about planet Earth. This is in the same league as the famous $100 billion per year climate adaptation financing which has sparked a huge controversy between the rich and poor developing countries. The former say it has been paid while the latter maintain it has not.

The “fossil fuel phase out” is impractical, hence the deal resorted to the phrase “phasing down unabated fossil fuels”.

In earlier statements to the media before COP28 negotiations wrapped up, the Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) represented by Zambia’s environment minister, Collins Nzovu, repeatedly said Africa should be permitted to use her abundant resources to develop.

The celebrated Loss and Damage Fund operationalization attracted ululations at the commencement of COP28 with pledges but no tangible commitments on the deadlines when these will be redeemed. The Fund will also likely be consigned to the history section. The $800 million (more than $700 million) or so pledged under the Fund is far less than what adaptation financing needs, which is estimated at $2 trillion annually by 2030.

The global stocktake outcome also highlights the deficit as far short of the trillions needed to support developing countries to transition to green energy and implement national climate plans. The plans are needed by developing and emerging economies to cope with the changing climate.

Perhaps the only positive on the finance front was the Green Climate Fund receiving a boost to its second replenishment although again this came in the form of pledges. Six countries promised new funding, bringing pledges to $12.8 billion at COP28.

According to Nzovu, the African bloc is alive to “similar financial commitments made in the past, which from our standpoint have not been fulfilled”.

“We hope this won’t be the case with the Lost and Damage Fund. We are also alive to the fact Loss and Damage requires billions if not trillions of dollars and we therefore need more resources to actualise the intended purpose of the Fund,” he said.

He said Africa flew to Dubai with a focus and determination that COP28 would deliver a fair and balanced global stocktake that catalyses greater ambition across all the elements of climate action. These include adaptation, loss and damage, mitigation and means of implementation centred on equity. Equity involves a just transition aimed at promoting sustainable development and climate finance where developed countries make meaningful financial commitments, both in quality and quantity, based on their obligations under the climate conventions and the Paris agreement.

There was also no deal on international carbon trading, which means countries who have been pushing for transparency have been left in the lurch while parties who have lobbied for no restrictions in the carbon market, scored a big win. This is yet another area where Africa was shortchanged badly.

Africa is at the receiving end of the current global market design as communities still don’t benefit due to lack of cost-benefit. This is in addition to the fact that this state of affairs enables questionable trading and promotes greenwashing when it comes to decarbonisation measures.

However, the continent has immense carbon trading potential. The African Carbon Markets Initiative, a UN-backed consortium, estimates that Africa uses just two percent of its annual carbon-credit potential. The Initiative aims for Africa to sell $100bn worth of credits a year by 2050.

As Africa continues to suffer the brunt of the adverse effects of climate change, while not having received the required multilateral financial support to face the challenge, the AGN underscored that “no adaptation finance deal, was no deal”.

“African countries need access to scaled up levels of new, additional, and predictable grants and concessional finance for climate action,” Nzovu said.

*This story was produced with support from MESHA and IDRC Eastern and Southern Africa office. Kayawe is an Mphil in Natural Resources Management and Participatory Development Communication candidate at the Okavango Research Institute