From September 4 to 6 over 30 climate journalists from across the region pondered on the African climate story, identified gaps in the narrative and how best to frame the story to enable climate action and agenda setting.
During the diagnostic sessions, African realities and voices were found missing from the story, yet it is vital to set the African agenda. Hence news media practitioners in the climate space were urged to reframe the story. This can be thought of as decolonising the African climate narrative, which more often than not is buried in the Western discourse.
A recommendation was made this week for Africa’s climate journalism to propel the continent to climate-compatible development.
Mohammed Adow, Power Shift Africa CEO, said the fact that the continent is warming up about twice to thrice the global rate due to its proximity to the Equator, coupled with a lack of adaptation capacity, makes it most vulnerable to climate impacts.
However, at the same time, Africa is the world’s lowest contributor to the harmful emissions warming up the globe, meaning there is an urgent need for conversations around adaptation.
Power Shift Africa, a Kenyan media establishment, partnered with yet another Nairobi-based media for science entity, Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA), to deliver this week’s training.
“Africa does not have emissions to cut,” Adow said. “What truly has to happen is for the continent to go big on adaptation. “It is crucial for African journalists to be the ones telling the African climate story and to decolonise the narrative. “There is no path to decarbonisation without decolonising the African story and building resilience. “To look back 60 years ago, did our liberators chart the way to challenge these colonial narratives?”
African voices need to be represented in the narrative to promote solutions in sync with the African reality.
“We will miss out on the opportunity of the 21st Century if others continue to dominate the narrative and discourse around climate change,” Adow said. “This continent is incredibly blessed with arable land, has immense renewable energy and a youthful population. “If we actually capitalise on the resources and opportunities, we could be able to develop in a climate-compatible and resilient manner. “That won’t happen if we use the Western frame. “We need to service the indigenous African frame that speaks to the African reality in a way that helps to deliver the prosperity of Africa in the 21st Century.” Agenda setting is central to the work of journalism, yet journalists in the climate space have not quite seized the opportunity to set the African climate change agenda. This is according to MESHA CEO, Aghan Daniel, who also decried conference and technical-based climate reporting in the region which tends to be devoid of vital voices. He concurred with Adow on spotlighting adaptation interventions.
“The vital voices are the people who are already intervening at the local level. “There are many initiatives that are going on, that are adding value, making a difference and changing lives and fighting climate change. “These are the stories that ought to be highlighted,” Daniel said.
He added that not all was gloomy as some people are putting climate change at bay. Once these cases are featured, Daniel said when the voices are heard, frequent, and consistent, the media can actualise the agenda setting that the media is supposed to do.
“We have left the politicians to set the agenda for us but I think that those brilliant journalists who are out there can look at this and ensure that they set the agenda for the issues of climate change,” he said.
Alongside the narrative, African systems of governance and policies needed a shift, according to economic experts. Grasping and addressing the global financial architecture that stems from the colonial system is critical to undressing the colonial suit the African climate story wears.
Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University, Fadhel Kaboub, said effective African climate policies require redesigning the global financial architecture to at least reverse the flaws.
Kaboub added that the economic design was colonial because it was an extraction economic engine, not meant for Africa’s development. He further said a long-term strategic vision for Africa was needed because “everyone else has that” and there is a pressing need for the continent to have geopolitical bargaining power to escape the “neocolonial trap”.
Kaboub, who is also the president of the Global Institute of Sustainable Prosperity, cautioned that the continent’s high external debt emanated from this structural system with some of the root causes being energy deficiency, food deficiency, and low value-added industrialisation.
“Food and energy sovereignty is critical to escaping this global system designed to destroy our food and energy security and sovereignty, in the process making us dependent. “If Africa does not design a long-term and coherent vision that repositions itself in the global space, the continent will continue to be part of someone else’s vision,” he said.
Meanwhile, civil society has expressed displeasure at what it terms the “infiltration of foreign interests” at the upcoming Africa Climate Summit. In a letter addressed to President William Ruto, over 500 civil society organisations want to see “resetting the focus of the Africa Climate Summit”.
The letter acknowledges the Summit as a tremendous opportunity to chart a new course for the continent that creates a leadership vision for a cleaner, safer and prosperous future that protects the African people, its food systems, water resources and biodiversity. Civil society organisations say the vision must boost "our collective efforts to build our renewable energy systems and electrification infrastructure on a scale that benefits millions of Africans while inspiring other countries to make interventions that prevent further global heating". “Rather than advancing Africa’s interests and position on critical climate issues, the Summit has been seized by Western governments, consultancy companies and philanthropic organisations hellbent on pushing a pro-West agenda and interests at the expense of Africa,” reads the letter in part.
The historic event is themed around opportunities for green growth and sustainable development. Organisers are looking to provide market signals for investments in Africa’s vast resource endowment in clean energy, critical minerals, agriculture and natural capital.
“The Africa Climate Week will consider four major systems-based tracks to provide region-focused contributions to inform the global stocktake on energy systems and industry, cities, urban and rural settlements, infrastructure and transport, land, ocean, food and water, societies, health, livelihoods, and economies,” according to the Africa Climate Summit website.
*Kayawe is a development communicator with an interest in science and climate change journalism. She has taken a keen interest in climate change as it is an existential threat to Africa and its developmental aspirations. Currently pursuing graduate studies in Natural Resources Management and Participatory Development Communication, Kayawe aims to be among the continent's science journalists making an impact in solution-based climate journalism.
