Africa Climate Summit to drive green growth, finance solutions for Africa – ONE Campaign - Businessday
Africa Climate Summit to drive green growth, finance solutions for Africa - ONE Campaign - Businessday NG
The ONE Campaign, an anti-poverty organization, has described the just concluded Africa Climate Summit as a bold plan that offers African leaders an opportunity to chart the continent’s unified and comprehensive direction towards building an equitable and sustainable future for the continent.
According to the Foundation, the summit that was hosted by the government of Kenya and the African Union, and concluded on Friday 8 September, put forward bold plans that were widely accepted by many across the continent. However, ONE said that the plans require scale and speed of concrete action to match the accelerated speed of the climate crisis in Africa.
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“President Ruto and the African Union deserve credit for providing a platform and setting a plan that finally reflects the magnitude of climate and economic crises facing Africa, and the scale of solutions required to tackle them. We echo President Ruto’s sentiments that African solutions are not only for Africa but for the betterment of the world,” Serah Makka, executive director for Africa, ONE Campaign said.
According to her, the Nairobi declaration rightly calls for bold and concrete action that supports Africa’s investment in its own development and action on climate change. She said that unleashing Africa’s potential needs fair access to finance and investment, something the current system is geared against.
“Practically, leaders laid out a clear agenda to massively increase MDB financing, tackle inefficient debt management processes and better leverage international resources like Special Drawing Rights. Tripling MDB financing, including critically concessional finance for countries that need it most, is the step change we need to see and that would help Africa access the affordable capital it needs,” Makka said.
Speaking further, she said that the G20 must now build on the spirit and determination shown at the summit to drive urgent action and change. According to Makka, having a seat at the table and a just global financial architecture system are not unjust proposals to make for Africa.
Read also: Group demands end to fossil fuel to reduce climate disaster
“Modest incrementalism will not do it. With the continent increasingly speaking with one voice, it is time for the rest of the world to listen and improve access to the tools needed to give Africa’s 1.4 billion peoples a shot at a better, fairer and more sustainable future,” Makka said.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”