Africa speaks out on climate

By: Aregu Balleh on September 7th, 2009

By Aregu Balleh

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – As the Copenhagen climate change summit draws closer, African voices are being heard loud and clear on the continent’s position.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, used his keynote address at the recent special session of the African Partnership Forum (APF) on climate change in Addis Ababa to insist that this time Africa will have one voice that will count. He will chair the African negotiating team in Copenhagen in December.

“ Unlike the G-8 outreach programmes and the G-20 summits,  programes that I have had the honour and, to some extent, the misfortune of representing Africa in, we will participate in the upcoming climate change negotiations not as invitees but as  full-blooded negotiators”, he said.

Meles, who has recently become vocal about the issue of climate change, said the fact that Africa will be represented by one negotiating team reinforces its role as stakeholder and negotiator.

“We will participate in the negotiations not as supplicants pleading our case but as negotiators defending our views and interests and reaching out to achieve our common positions.”

He said: “ I do not want to be misunderstood. Africa will not be there to express its participation by merely warming the chairs, or  making perfunctory speeches and statements. We want to be and deserve to be in the thick of it all.”

According to the Prime Minister, Africa’s primary interest is not to claim  compensation for climate change and its damage, but to prevent it from happening in the first instance. This is because Africa’s ecology is amongst the Earth’s most fragile and so is highly vulnerable to catastrophic damage caused by small changes in temperature.

“ It makes no sense to us for someone to make a large part of our continent unlivable and then pay some compensation for doing so”, Meles said.

He said Africa wants to keep its forests intact and re-forest areas that have over the years been degraded, at the same time quickly adopting green technologies.

Meles insisted that Africa demands to be part of the solution to climate change, even to mitigating it, although it has contributed virtually nothing to the problem. But he hinted that it will never accept any global deal that does not limit warming to the minimum unavoidable level, no matter how much compensation and assistance is promised to it.

Lord Nicholas Stern is Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment , and Professor of Economics and Political Science at the London School of Economics. He stresses that in order to have a reasonable chance of avoiding an increase in global average temperature that exceeds 2˚C, a global deal should ensure worldwide emissions reductions from the present level of about 50 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to no more than 20 gigatonnes by 2050, by focusing on greener and innovative technologies.

The annual cost of action on climate change in Africa alone is estimated to amount to around US$30 billion, with US$20 billion of this total required for adaptation and the balance for mitigation. Yet this figure is projected to rise to US$ 100 billion in 2020.

Lord Stern said rich countries should give their strong backing to climate change policies, including those designed to halt deforestation, and to low-carbon growth plans in developing countries. Methods should include additional financial support, beyond official development assistance.

Meanwhile African negotiators are expected to come up with a consolidated negotiating document setting out their position for the Copenhagen summit.