Climate Finance Tiff: Africa Needs to Rethink its Strategy, Clean its Hands

By Daniel Otunge

The fallout from the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) over the financing of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage in developing countries led to protests, and a walkout by developing-country delegations led by the African negotiators was not unexpected.

First, the facts. The Baku COP’s sole goal was to renew the global focus on finance as a critical enabler in transforming climate ambitions into concrete actions. The money is badly needed to address greenhouse gas emissions, climate adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage efforts. The Azerbaijan COP Presidency knew as much.

It is now a trite fact that Africa bears the biggest brunt of the effects of climate emergencies while contributing little to their causes. The continent needs over US$2.5 trillion annually between 2020 and 2030 to achieve its obligations under the Paris Climate Agreement, especially the nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Yet, Africa gets only US$30 billion annually in climate finance through loans and other instruments, while loss and damage alone require over five hundred billion dollars. How is it expected to cope with the heavy burden of climate change? That was the rhetorical question on the lips of African negotiators at COP29.

The rich Global North has more crucial matters, such as immigration and far-right movements, to lose sleep about African farmers and families sleeping hungry because drought or floods have decimated their crops.

Against this backdrop, coupled with the fact that the issue of climate financing has been contentious since the 2015 Paris Agreement, what options does Africa have? Is Africa hitting its head on the proverbial stone without realizing it?

What concrete reforms can African states institute to cushion their population from the effects of climate change without having to look up to the unwilling developed countries for help?

Back to the start. The failure of COP29 to reach any significant deal was expected for four main reasons. First, Baku is not important diplomatically. It has no diplomatic muscles. That is partly why significant leaders gave the meeting a wide birth. Secondly, Baku is seen to be politically aligned with what the West derogatorily calls the axis of evil.

Third, rapid shifts in geopolitical tectonic plates have firmly marked the return of the Cold War and signs of the ongoing wars in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The AU must urge African leaders to stop eating borrowed money and taxes to the extent of ‘voting on the payers’ shoes while still expecting to be given more, as one Western diplomat once told Nairobi in anger.

Fourth, the death of liberal democracy in the West, epitomized by the just-ended US elections and the most recent European parliamentary elections where far-right racist formations won big.

All these mean one thing: the rich Global North has more crucial matters such as immigration to lose sleep about African farmers and families sleeping hungry because drought or floods have decimated their crops and livestock.

Besides, the West will not fully bankroll climate action in Africa while equally rich BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) do nothing and even pollute more.

The overburdened West can no longer fend off China’s and Russia’s growing economic and military ambitions and still be expected to bankroll climate change actions internally and externally solely. It is unrealistic to think that the US will stop using hydrocarbons to power its industry while China, whose economy threatens to overtake that of the US in a few decades, continues to use them.

Africa gets only US$30 billion annually in climate finance through loans and other instruments, while loss and damage alone require over five hundred billion dollars.

So, Africa must return to the drawing board and stop holding meetings to budget with someone else’s money.

Instead, the African Union(AU) should lead Africa in thinking about using whatever it has, including its natural resources, to cushion its economies from climate shocks.

It is possible because Africa is not poor. It is made to look so for the benefit of its rapacious leaders. It is the leaders who think that accumulating too much wealth for their kith and kin that are poor in mind.

How do they expect the taxpayers in the Global North to pay for climate mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage when, in some countries, about 25 million dollars are stolen from public coffers daily?

By stopping looting, such a country can easily raise over eight billion dollars annually for climate action. I believe more is stolen daily in other African states.

The AU must urge African leaders to stop ‘eating’ borrowed money and taxes to the extent of ‘voting on the payers’ shoes while still expecting to be given more, as one Western diplomat once told Nairobi in a tiff. When you keep feeding a sick child, it will vomit on your clothes.

How do they expect the taxpayers in the Global North to pay for climate mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage when, in some countries, up to three million dollars are stolen from public coffers daily?

Let our governments not ignore their responsibility to protect their citizens from the adverse effects of climate change.

Despite the nice international environmental law principles, such as polluter-pays and equal but differentiated responsibilities according to capabilities, etc., the primary responsibility for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage lies squarely with national governments.

The incoming Trump regime will not lose sleep because some farmers in Budalangi or pastoralists in Turkana have lost crops or cattle, respectively, due to floods or drought. Not when our (Kenya) government can sell donkey shit and dirt to farmers as fertilizer, and all the criminals go unpunished.

A well-known equity maxim says those who come into equity must come with a clean hand. Let our leaders clean their begging hands; otherwise, the West could rightfully mount the equitable defense of unclean hands.

The Writer is an environmental and climate law expert.