• Says Africa hardest hit in menace of climate warming
By Emma Emeozor
Some critics have dismissed the Climate Change Conference (COP28) holding in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) as an annual jamboree by political leaders and fun-seeking members of Civil Societies Organisations (CSOs).
They argued that since the global talks on how to “reduce risk and vulnerability to climate change, strengthen resilience, enhance well-being and the capacity to anticipate, and respond successfully to change,” there had been no tangible results beyond rhetoric by conference participants.
In their opinion, organisers of the conference that “primarily revolve around negotiations and debates,” have not been able to walk the talks beyond the walls of the conference hall. For this group of observers, the outcome of the ongoing conference in UAE will not be different from previous ones.
But United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, Ambassador John Kerry thinks differently. He expressed confidence that there is much to gain from the conference, saying “it’s a unique opportunity, in my judgment, to rally the world to significantly step up our collective efforts to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
Kerry let out his views during a virtual press briefing on what the conference holds for the world. Expressing the concern of his government over the global socio-economic crisis resulting from Climate Change, the envoy stressed why the world should take the conference serious and ensures that it’s desired objectives are achieved
Kerry highlighted three mandated issues that make the conference important: the global stocktake, which he described as a very important document; the adaptation report that will be coming through; and the standing up of the loss and damage fund itself and, in addition, providing further guidance going forward to advance the Paris Agreement’s goal on adaptation. “It’s the first COP that will take stock of our collective progress towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement,” he said.
Interestingly, Kerry may have acknowledged the criticisms that are trailing the Climate Change conferences when he said “I think this global stocktake needs to earn the credibility of the world by being candid, strong, visionary, comprehensive; it needs to lay out for the world what’s happened since Paris.
Kerry, a diplomat who is passionate about his mission told journalists the success so far achieved just as he expressed optimism that Mother Earth will be secured for humanity.
He said: “The measurement of the stocktake begins with Paris, and it goes forward from there. And at the time of Paris, we were headed towards about 3.7 to 4 degrees of warming on the planet. Now, at least – and I don’t say this because the job is done, but at least we’re down around 2.5, 2.7. It depends who you’re talking to.
“But also we know from the IEA that if all the promises of Glasgow were fulfilled and all the promises of Sharm el-Sheikh were fulfilled, you could be by 2050 at either 1.8 degrees or 1.7 degrees of warming on the planet.”
“So, it shows that with this effort, things could be within grasp . . . but strong decisions in those three areas that I mentioned are a key measurement of the success of this COP, the potential success of this COP,” he added.
While naming some of the things that cause climate warming such as methane and Green Shipping; heavy industry producing products like steel, aluminum, concrete, cement and deforestation, he said the United States was “focusing on strengthening resilience to the impacts of the climate crisis through the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience, the PREPARE program, which he announced when he visited the COP. And that is a multibillion-dollar initiative to assist the most vulnerable and challenged and threatened nations around the world.”
Some analysts have questioned how the ambitious programme of Climate Change advocates will be financed, precisely the source of funding of the various projects being advanced annually.
Kerry provided an answer. He said: “We’ll also be working to highlight and generate increased support for the all-in global finance mobilization effort, and finance will take a very prominent role at this COP partly because of the changes we’ve been able to make at the World Bank and partly because of new initiatives that are going to be announced in order to accelerate the transition on a global basis.
“And finally, we’re going to be refocusing effort and energy on the 1.5 degrees, which is the critical guidepost for all of us here. There’ll be efforts on mitigation; there’ll be efforts on the innovation frontier, particularly with respect to agriculture and other sectors.”
Though Africa is home to non-industrialised countries, the continent is a major victim of climate warming because of the rape of its natural resources that are exploited for industrial use by the developed countries. Besides the exploitation of its natural resources, the continent is a dumping ground for toxic waste exported from industrialised countries.
It was expected when Kerry was asked to explain the strategies the United States plan to employ to support and engage in the fight against climate change and the achievement of sustainable development objectives in Africa.
He was also asked to explain how can the U.S. collaborate with countries like Rwanda across Africa to harness their distinct capabilities and knowledge to propel clean energy technologies and stimulate sustainable economic progress in Africa.
Kerry admitted that Africa was the hardest hit in the menace of climate warming even as it is the least contributor to the problem. His response: “Well, we are keenly aware of the degree to which Africa bears an enormous brunt of the crisis of climate on a global basis. I mean, Africa is among the hardest hit. It is the least contributor to the problem.
“So, I think we all sense a very special relationship there and a need to respond to what is happening. Countries like Somalia and Ethiopia, Kenya, have all faced extreme floods, Mozambique. The three I mentioned are just in the past two months: three months, and obviously displacing thousands of people and taking lives. And those floods came on in the wake of the longest drought on record, which left millions of people without secure access to food over the last three years.
“So that’s precisely why President Biden launched the Presidents’ Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience. And that will directly help half a billion people in developing countries, especially Africa to adapt to the worst climate impacts. In addition, we’ve worked hard to deal with the standing up of the loss and damage fund. We anticipate that that’s going to be constructed in a way that will really serve the needs of the developing world of the Global South, and we think that the measures being taken and the initiatives that are growing around the world are going to be very significant in addressing the needs of Africa.
“We are the largest donor in the African-led and African-conceived African Adaptation Initiative. And at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi which I had the pleasure of attending, which was a terrific conference, by the way, and President Ruto deserves a lot of credit for the job he did in leading that we announced new funding to advance adaptation and accelerate climate-resilient food security initiatives across Africa. And we intend to be a strong partner for African countries who are adapting to climate impacts.
“We also look forward to working with the World Bank for some of the new finance structures that are going to make it much more possible to be able to develop alternative renewable clean energy choices so that countries aren’t stuck with a one-choice-only, you got to go the road of fossil fuel.
We think there are many more and better options than that in today’s world, and we’re going to work very hard with the region in order to be able to have a greater impact.
“And I think that the technologies that are now beginning to come online are hard to afford in some of the developing countries, so we have a special responsibility to try to help on the finance front, which we’re going to do for certain. And working with the World Bank, we anticipate a much higher level of less expensive lending to take place. We’re also going to be working on nature-based solutions, and even swaps, debt for swaps, that will make it possible to move.”
The envoy also provides an answer on what can the countries most vulnerable to climate change do to ensure their voices are heard at COP and in the overall climate discussion. He said: “Well, some of that I tried to just answer in the discussion about Africa. But every developing country has its own characteristics, has its own challenges. And yet there are still similarities between some of the things that are necessary.
“The Just Energy Transition Partnerships, which we created together with our friends in Europe, are country-led platforms that are tailored to each country’s specific needs. And I helped to negotiate the one in both Vietnam and in Indonesia, which we’re now implementing, and we hope to have strong announcements at COP28 with respect to the progress on those. “
“But we focus on three things: one, supporting a country’s specific ambition to de-carbonize its energy sector and helping them to create new policy environments that can deal with, can remove market distortions and facilitate more renewable energy investments. That’s one. Second, the partnership aggregates significant sums of development finance and philanthropic resources in order to help catalyze private sector finance which will support those countries’ climate goals.
“There are trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines in various parts of the world which shy away from some of the climate investments for reasons of risk or whatever their perceptions are, and what we need to do is try to create an availability of bankable deals. And that can happen by having some blended finance and mixed finance mechanisms, using credits, other things, other tools. And I think that hopefully COP28 in Dubai is going to produce a pretty healthy menu of possibilities on the finance front.”
Kerry was asked if the United States was content with the current draft of the COP agreement regarding the loss and damage fund and also, if now, what revisions or adjustments does the U.S. envision for it?
His response: “Well, the United States fully supports the consensus that was reached by the transitional committee, which we served on, and it was reached earlier this month on recommending how you operationalize the funding arrangements for this fund and how we will respond in a way that the vulnerable and most affected countries feel like the fund is actually helpful and there for them and capable of making a difference. So, we think that this fund, the way it’s designed will meet the needs of vulnerable countries.
“We worked hard with our partners to have, to propose ways in which this fund can be stood up quickly but confidently by using the World Bank as the repository initially, temporarily.
“And we’re working with partners to develop a framework that’s going to accelerate some of the activities that need to be engaged in now in order to make sure that this fund is going to meet recovery needs, damages from storms, hurricanes, in some cases moving people out of harm’s way, early warning of storms.
“There’s just a whole lot of pieces of it that we think need to be addressed. And I think that it’s important the fund does not represent any expression of liability or compensation or any sort of legal, new legal requirements, but it is going to try to be there for those in the developing world who have taken some of the brunt and whose citizens are, in many cases, threatened as a consequence of not being able to adapt or build out resilience and so forth. So, it’s a good fund; we support it. We actively worked very hard to create it, and we will continue to be supportive.”
The envoy was also asked if the United States will endorse agreements aimed at gradually reducing or eliminating unmitigated fossil fuels, with specific reference to oil. His answer: “Yeah, we supported language requiring the phase-out of unabated fossil fuel, and we will continue to support that language.
“We supported it at the G7 and we support it now. We find it hard for anybody to understand how they would continue to allow unabated burning of fossil fuel in the world we’re living in, knowing what we know about the dangers. So, we do support an outcome in the global stocktake that builds on the G7 commitment to accelerate the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels, and to achieve net-zero emissions in all energy systems by mid-century.
“We still have people who have not signed up to that. They are, some of them, among the major producers of fossil fuel, and they need to immediately step up and be part of the solution, not the most significant part of the problem. And we hope we can send a very strong signal that the nations of the world are committed to work together to transition away from fossil fuel emissions in the next three decades. Period. It’s critical.”