Africa mounts pressure on climate change action
Boniface Keakabetse | Thursday December 10, 2015 14:41
The call was made during the ongoing UN Paris climate talks aimed at reaching a universal climate deal to limit global temperatures increases to below two degrees celsius.
This call was made by the Pan African Justice Alliance ((PACJA) which is a continental coalition of civil society organisations from diverse backgrounds in Africa. The alliance is the largest African civil society platform on climate change and sustainable development and has a membership of more than 1,000 organisations and networks in 45 countries in Africa.
On Monday, the beginning of the final week of the climate change conference, PACJA members marched through the Le Bourget conference arena in Paris demanding a better climate deal. The African civil society warned that the new Paris talks could trigger even greater climate crises in Africa, if countries were not careful to protect the rights of the poor and vulnerable in Africa.
PACJA also made strong calls for the provision of adequate climate change finance to help African countries cope with climate change.
“For 21 years there have been talks but no action while we in Africa continually face the danger of climate change. Africa is the continent most affected by climate change,” PACJA chairman, Augustine Njamnshi, said during the rally.
As the poorest continent, Africa is more susceptible to climate change and is struggling to cope with the physical, human and socio-economic consequences of climate change.
Njamnshi said African countries are too poor to undertake climate change mitigation to reduce or prevent higher emissions of greenhouse gases.
Climate mitigation also relates to the use of new technologies and renewable energies.
Njamnshi said even as the continent attempted to tackle climate change, the world had to understand that Africa has the right to develop, particularly in the area of water and energy provision.
In a press release, PACJA also noted that the world had been previously promised that emission cuts will be strengthened this year, but this had not happened.
The release said instead of the anticipated emission cuts, African countries had been saddled with the additional load of paying a “climate debt” which they had contributed the least to.
As the second week of the conference rolled out, environmental activists from all over the world demanded “equity, a fair deal and a legally binding agreement”. More activists called on rich countries to come to the party.
“Countries must be mandated to include contributions on all the elements including provision of money for adaptation for developing and developed countries,” said Robert Chimambo of Zambia Climate Change Network.
PACJA secretary general, Mithika Mwenda, called on the African continent to stay united and strong during the Paris climate talks which will end on Friday.
“Any climate change deal that leads us to three degrees of warming, causing untold problems of hunger, starvation, disasters, conflicts wars in Africa, is not in the interest of the continent and should be rejected,” he said.
The developing world is evidently running out of faith with the developed rich countries whom they accuse of lack of urgency in coming up with a deal to cut emissions.
Placard-carrying demonstrators were galore along the conference streets, imploring rich countries to “pay”.
Demonstrators feel that the issue of funding for adaptation, loss and damage caused by climate change is getting pushed out of the Paris conference, which is a concern to developing countries.
On Monday at the opening of the week’s high level segment, UN Secretary General, Ban ki-Moon, told the delegates that the world is expecting more than half measures.
The second week of the negotiations sees world ministers taking over the negotiations to resolve the critical remaining high level political questions needed to unlock a final deal.
Environment, Wildlife and Tourism minister, Tshekedi Khama, is expected to jet in for this last leg of the talks after president Ian Khama left at the commencement of the talks last week.
The Paris climate change talks are focussed on increasing climate change actions in the near term and on creating a new climate agreement in 2015 which will come into effect in 2020 when all the current agreements come to the end.