Kenya's President William Ruto made his way to the Jomo Kenyatta International Conference Centre in a small electric car, a contrast to the usual government convoys of fossil fuel-powered vehicles. He is hosting African heads of states for the first Africa Climate Action Summit.
President Ruto launched the ministerial session on Monday while more than a dozen heads of state begin to arrive, determined to have a louder voice and bring in more financing and support to Africa's climate agenda.
"This is no ordinary summit. We are not here just to talk about Africa or climate change in the usual way, which often accentuates our divisions—north versus south, developed versus developing, polluters versus the victims." Ruto said.
Opportunities
“For a very long time we have looked at this as a problem. There are immense opportunities as well,” Ruto said of the climate crisis.
''We must see in green growth not just a climate imperative, but also a fountain of multi-billion-dollar economic opportunities that Africa and the World is primed to capitalise on," he added.
Most of the greenhouse emissions are produced by world's advanced economies but developing countries including African are mostly hit by the impact. But the Ruto said the summit was not about cataloguing grievances but exploring opportunities.
"We have ample renewable energy potential, and the natural assets and resources to green our own consumption, and meaningfully contribute to decarbonisation of the global economy,'' the Kenyan leader who was recently criticised for lifting a logging ban in his country said.
Funding and emissions
The first speakers during the opening of the summit included youth, who demanded a bigger voice in the process.
“This is our time,” Mithika Mwenda with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance told the gathering, asserting that the annual flow of climate assistance to the continent is a tenth or less of what is needed and a “fraction” of the budget of some polluting companies.
“We need to immediately see the delivery of the $ 100 billion pledged (by rich countries annually to developing ones in climate finance),” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
More than $83 billion in climate financing was given to poorer countries in 2020, a 4% increase from the previous year but still short of the goal set in 2009, AFP news agency reports.
The effects
“We have an abundance of clean, renewable energy and it’s vital that we use this to power our future prosperity. But to unlock it, Africa needs funding from countries that have got rich off our suffering,” Mohamed Adow with Power Shift Africa said ahead of the summit.
Attendees from outside Africa include the US government’s climate envoy, John Kerry, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has said he will address finance as one of “the burning injustices of the climate crisis.”
Kenya derives 93% of its power from renewables and has banned single-use plastic bags, but it struggles with some other climate-friendly adaptations.
Other challenges for the African continent include simply being able to forecast and monitor the weather in order to avert thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damages that, like climate change itself, have effects far beyond the continent. “When the apocalypse happens, it will happen for all of us,” Ruto warned.
