New approach to climate change needed
THE pressure is growing on Africa to change its lacklustre approach towards climate change ahead of the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit in New York, US, later this month.
“This is the last wake-up call to all countries to raise their game and step up climate action for multiple social, economic and environmental wins,” according to Aida Opoku-Mensah, chief of staff at the Economic Commission for Africa.
Opoku-Mensah made the comments at the eighth edition of the Climate Change and Development in Africa Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last Wednesday calling for urgent action to fight climate change. The conference saw Africa’s environmental heads come together to prepare for the UN summit in three weeks.
“Many African countries have submitted ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions to Climate Action – NDCs – showing that African leaders have made strong commitments to tackle climate change while striving to meet their national development agendas,” said Ethiopia’s Frehiwot Woldehanna, state minister for of Energy Sector, Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity.
Despite these efforts on the ground, climate-induced frequent and more intense droughts “are putting our energy security and reliability at risk, with significant economic and social impacts”, said the minister, warning that without urgent action to tackle climate change Africa would not meet the targets of the other sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Cecilia Njenga, head of the UN Environment Programme Office in Pretoria, called for urgent action.
“If we don’t act, and I don’t want to sound like (environmentalist Sir Richard) Attenborough, imagine yourself in a place where garbage is not collected, recycled and processed – you will drown in that garbage. That’s what will happen, if we don’t act, we will drown in our own mess,” she warned.
South Africa plays host to the continent’s green ministers when the 17th Ordinary session of the Africa Ministers’ Conference on Environment (Amcen) takes place in Durban from November 11-15.
But UN Secretary-General António Guterres has already challenged the world’s leaders expected to converge in New York on September 23 to produce concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050.
Happy Khambule, political adviser for global environmental lobby group Greenpeace Africa, believes the UN Environment sessions are proving effective. But, he said Amcen had been reduced to the consolidation of highlevel political co-ordination.
“There’s a difference in the understanding of the ministers in Amcen… The political co-ordination tends to send strong political messages without the necessary support being devolved to lower spheres and stakeholders.”
Khambule reckons that “the SDG goals on the environment will barely be met”. “There is alignment on the environment goals conceptually, but in implementation there are a lot of gaps because climate change obligations, for the most part, are binding whereas SDG goals are voluntary.”