As delegates meet in Paris, climate apartheid is slowly cooking Africa

Two degrees Celcius is all that stands between hope and doom for Africa. A temperature rise beyond that could spell the beginning of the end of life as we have known it on the continent. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Rising global temperatures rank among the greatest threats that humanity has faced, and their effects are on par with the threat of nuclear annihilation and mass pandemic diseases, and perhaps no other region on Earth has as much at stake as does the African continent.
  • Having failed to act decisively in Copenhagen in 2009, this is probably the last chance for the international community to avert temperature rises beyond 2°Celsius, because anything above that could
  • lead to major and dangerous climate consequences, especially in the developing world.

As delegates sharpen their gear for this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP-21) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), African environmental experts are hoping that the continent will this time round get a fair deal out of the negotiations.

The summit is scheduled to adopt a binding agreement to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing runaway global warming and climate change, and which is expected to take full effect in 2020. Negotiators will also discuss mitigation, adaptation, losses and damages, climate finance, technology transfer, and a variety of other issues.

The Paris summit comes after more than 20 years of climate negotiations, and 18 years after the Kyoto Protocol was agreed. Having failed to act decisively in Copenhagen in 2009, this is probably the last chance for the international community to avert temperature rises beyond 2°Celsius.

If temperature rises exceed 2C, say scientists, this will lead to major and dangerous climate consequences, especially in the developing world.

GREATEST THREAT

Global climate change ranks among the greatest threats that humanity has faced and is on par with the threat of nuclear annihilation and mass pandemic diseases, and perhaps no other region on Earth has as much at stake as does the African continent.

“Climate change is a defining challenge for development in Africa,” says Guido Schmidt-Traub, a former climate change advisor to the Swiss-based Africa Progress Panel Secretariat and current

Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), which has been instrumental in bolstering the new UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Africa contributes the least to global emissions. And yet, if carbon emissions continue to increase (which looks likely) and global temperatures continue to rise (also likely), the continent would undoubtedly face further environmental degradation such as deforestation, desertification, declining soil productivity, loss of biodiversity and depletion of fresh water.

These environmental challenges have implications for food crop production, food security, water supplies, health, livelihoods of the poor and the sustainability of economic growth.

The Indian and Atlantic oceans surrounding the continent are also being affected by rising global temperatures — as evident by the Pacific Ocean El Nino weather currently affecting East Africa.

Coral reefs off the East African coast will be particularly vulnerable. These are a treasure trove of biodiversity and also support some hundreds of millions of people, the majority in developing regions,

with various ecosystem services, the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that compose them, sustain and fulfill human life, including food, materials, transport, and shelter.

FURTHER DECLINE

“Coral reefs will certainly decline further and be unable to recover from multiple other impacts, and mangroves and seagrasses will also be strongly affected,” says Dr David Obura, coordinator for the

Mombasa-based Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean (Cordio) East Africa, which supports research and monitoring of coral reefs and coastal ecosystems in mainland Africa and

Indian Ocean island states.

The economic effects of global warming are already being felt in East Africa. Recently, all hydropower plants in Tanzania were switched off because drought has led to low water levels in the country’s dams.

In Zanzibar, seaweed (mwani in Kiswahili) has been one of Zanzibar’s key exports for over two decades (it’s used as a base for cosmetics, lotions, toothpaste, medicines and food).

At its peak, the trade contributed almost $8 million (817 million) a year to the Zanzibar economy.

In the process, it had lifted many women out of poverty. But many women in recent times have abandoned seaweed farming blaming rising sea temperatures for a mass dying of seaweed.

Often called the first ‘climate war’, Darfur’s ongoing conflicts in the Sudan is the starkest example of how climate change can contribute to violent conflict in Africa.

According to the UNEP’s environment and conflict analysis, regional climate variability, water scarcity and the steady loss of fertile land have contributed to the various wars in Darfur.

SUCCUMB TO TEMPERATURES

According to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Forum (2009), already more than 300,000 current deaths per year are attributable to climate change. And more Africans will succumb to the effects of increasing global temperatures.

According to a 2006 Christian Aid report, an estimated 182 million Africans will die due to climate related disease this century.

In the past, Africa has gotten a raw deal (by having no deal) at previous COPs conferences in getting developed nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Big industry and global politics have triumphed over science and the future of humanity in previous COP meetings.

Negotiators from North America, Europe, Saudi Arabia, all the BRICS countries, Japan and Australia have been accused of betrayal by knowingly sabotaging progress on climate change.

“The critical moments that defined Africa’s future climate crisis, however, were in December 2009 in Copenhagen,” says Professor Patrick Bond of the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, and Director of the Centre for Civil Society.

“The negotiations at COP15 were diverted one night into a room where five leaders — from the US, Brazil, China, India and South Africa — agreed on a side deal, the Copenhagen Accord.

That was the source of Africa’s major problems in climate negotiations for years thereafter, including at Paris.”

It’s ironic that Africa, the region most affected by global warming, appears to have the weakest negotiating power at the COP conferences, including the Paris summit.

Equally poignant is that the annual UNFCCC COP has been held on the continent on three separate occasions: in 2001 in Marrakech, 2006 in Nairobi and 2011 in Durban.

Many experts are calling for Africa to take the lead in presenting the science and getting a fair deal at the COP-21 in Paris, but the continent has its own inherent weaknesses that prevent it from being the force it should be when it comes to influencing global climate change policy.

Some observers believe that its negotiators might not necessarily have the ability to contribute tangibly to finalisation of documents and resolutions.

“Africa lacks a critical mass of expertise to lobby or make meaningful conclusion,” says Prof Ruth K Oniang’o, a Kenyan food and nutrition scientist and Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND).

“Those from outside Africa working on these crucial issues then end up talking for and about Africa at these global gatherings.

Flooding, drought, increased temperatures and associated incidents hurt Africa and threaten its very survival. As Africans, we need to own these issues, but we also need to train negotiators to represent the continent.”

BLOCKING THE COP-21

Nevertheless, African civil society groups are already preparing their strategy for forcing the COP-21 to finally give the continent and other environmentally vulnerable developing regions a fair deal in spite of the strength of Western governments and multinational corporations.

Activists are planning on civil society blocking the COP21 delegates into (not out of) the negotiating chamber on December 11 to 12, that is if they have not succeeded in coming to a planet-saving deal (a tactic known as Redlines).

The tactic of blocking negotiators in could have the effect of legitimising their work and in the sense would potentially generate the goodwill needed for a deal.

The Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), a continental coalition of civil society organisations on the African continent brought together by a common agenda of promoting and advocating for

climate related and equity based development that considers climate change as a key driver of sustainable development, will play a critical role in getting the African agenda on the negotiation tables in

Paris.

At the preparatory session in Dar es Salaam last September, the PACJA told the African negotiators to be stronger and tougher than at previous COPs since it’s a now-or-never situation of finally getting

a 2 degree Celsius limit and related funding and technology transfer pledges.

The Paris deal must also address the issue of reparations for the “loss and damage” (the UN’s technical term) that Western greenhouse gas emitters have done to “climate creditor” developing

economies such as those in Africa (“loss and damage” would be when a country loses half its GDP and is no longer able to adapt to global warming in an incremental fashion). But the voluntary nature of Copenhagen and its Green Climate Fund means there is no legal liability on the part of “climate debtors” in the Global North.

“The specific climatic conditions in Africa, especially the need for a rigorous accounting of climate debt owed by the Global North for net loss and damage here, are ignored to the extent that Africa’s negotiating power is terribly weak,” says Prof Bond of the University of KwaZulu Natal

Subsistence farmers in Africa are seen as the key to reducing hunger and malnutrition on the continent and it is they who will be most affected Climate finance mechanisms need to be improved or designed in a way that benefits smallholder farmers in Africa (it’s estimated that Africa needs $10–20 billion per year in additional external support to adapt to climate change).

“African smallholders cannot escape poverty unless they are equipped to adapt to a changing climate,” says Dr Katrin Glatzel, a Policy and Research Officer at Agriculture for Impact, London, UK. “This requires serious, large-scale investment from donors, developed country governments and the private sector”

Kenya’s subsistence farmers are themselves asking for community grain drying facilities which are not open-air so as to prevent unexpected and erratic rains from destroying grain which may be drying, and pulses such as beans and peas needed for good nutrition.

Organisations such as AJFAND are supporting the use of canvas to keep the grain uncontaminated.

These canvases are easier to fold and protect the grain should the rains suddenly appear. AJFAND is also supporting the use of hermetic bags to protect against insects once the grain is well dried, as well as integrated soil fertility management, a programme supported by Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (with climate variability and El Nino, new pests and diseases also emerge).

“We are clearly concerned about food shortage, hunger and malnutrition being exacerbated. Major food crop and livestock losses will likely be experienced by farmers and push them to severe economic shock,” says Prof Oniang’o. “I doubt that African governments are adequately prepared for this, not even Kenya.

Food prices for urban dwellers will certainly go up. Farmers can be innovative but governments are the ones to really step up and help to look for solutions from wherever they exist and help their smallholder farmers.”

Adaptation is already taking place in some of Africa’s most ecologically fragile regions, such as Kenya’s drylands. In Laikipia District, an estimated two-thirds of the land is privately-held commercial ranches. In recent years, Maa-speaking pastoralists, including the Maasai and Samburu, opened discussions with ranch owners and managers about allowing them to access pasture inside ranches. This was a result of the severe 2009-2010 drought.

POSITIVE EFFECTS

Responding to climatic conditions such as drought is having positive effects on other areas of the herding lifestyle such as conflict resolution.

During the severe drought of 2009-2010, individual Maa-speaking herd-owners in Laikipia negotiated with Meru and Kikuyu small-holder farmers living adjacent to Mt Kenya to graze their livestock on farms.

The agreement, which was built on traditions of cooperation between these neighbouring communities, permitted herders to move their livestock during the day into the Mt Kenya forest (where they were prevented from residing) and to be kraaled at night on farms near the forest perimeter.

It was a win-win scenario for both groups. The herders were able to access critically needed fodder in the Mt Kenya forest during the drought while farmers were able to keep the manure of livestock kept on farms.

Climate change has made movement necessary even during wet periods. In the Pokot areas of western Kenya, when the herds trek to find the best grazing during the rainy season, some livestock (about five to ten animals) remain in the permanent homesteads feeding on hay.

This is meant to provide milk, meat and blood for the family in the manyattas or homesteads (Pokot women traditionally took hay for calves and the weaker animals).

Such a simple act has allowed Pokot children to stay at home and attend school. Hay is cut and stored for feeding in the dry season.

In the field of water management, adaptation is also taking place. The Pokot are able to store a small amount of precious water for the dry season by constructing small dams across streams and small rivers using stones and sometimes cement supplied by local NGOs.

The Pokot can also source water stored in the sand even during the severest drought.

PERENNIAL DILEMMA

The perennial dilemma for Africa has always been that it does not produce high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. And the poorest countries in Africa and elsewhere must be allowed economic development, as industrialisation did for the West, without any constraints over the near term.

But African governments fear that radical action on emissions will significantly reduce economic growth and increase unemployment in a time when poverty reduction remains national priorities throughout the developing world.

However, this need not be the case. Recent reports from the Deep Decarbonisation Pathway Project, for example, have demonstrated that the transformation towards low-carbon development is

possible and can be consistent with the long-term development aspirations of emerging economies and established nation-states, if decisive action is taken.

It’s a big ask though, because it requires a long-term transformation of every country’s energy system. But the Paris agreement must also include a provision that every country develop non-binding

National Deep Decarbonisation Pathways through to 2050.

The harsh reality is that the world is most likely to warm by between 3-5C, because politicians at the Paris climate summit won’t be willing or able to make the scale of cuts needed to keep temperature rises under 2C.

“If negotiating tactics change and African negotiators plus civil society allies do what they did in Seattle in 1999 or Doha in 2001, where the target was the WTO, then maybe the Global North and

BRICS will have reason to take Africa and its scientists seriously,” says Prof Bond.

“That is the challenge for this continent: stand up and be a nuisance in Paris.”