The Sunday Mail
Sifelani Tsiko
There is an Indian saying: “When an arrow has hit, there is no time to ask who shot, or what kind of arrow it was.”
Similarly, as Africa encounters human suffering, largely as a result of climate change, the major polluting nations want Africans to respond with compassion rather than question the politics of who is historically responsible for climate change.
We have been told that climate change knows no boundaries and will affect food security, water availability and human health across the world significantly.
Instead of asking who is causing climate and what kinds of methods are being used to fuel global warming, major polluting nations want Africans to ignore and abandon the historical responsibility for climate change.
They want Africans to think: “We are all human beings, we will suffer the same and you have a right to happiness equal to our own. So why worry about who is the biggest polluter.”
As delegates trooped to the United Nations Climate Change Conference which was held in Lima, Peru from December 1 to 12, African negotiators were again chasing the elusive promises that ring with all major international climate change negotiations.
A string of UNFCCC gatherings have been organised world over in the past to discuss a broad range of climate change-related issues, but the big questions — including how to address carbon reduction in rich and poor countries and if tangible progress is being made — remain elusive.
Africa and other developing countries have been pushing wealthier nations to accept tough short-term carbon emission targets, demanding cuts of at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
But the major polluting nations demurred, refusing to commit to new cuts now, even though their existing commitments would lead to a reduction of only four percent to 14 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
At the Doha, Qatar meeting of 2012, Australia, the EU, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland agreed to a further commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. So far, 14 countries have ratified the Treaty.
Major emitters such as China, the US, Russia, India, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and South Africa announced politically binding reduction targets to be achieved by 2020.
Failure to ratify the treaty by the developed nations is frustrating progress already achieved in combating climate change effects.
Samual Samson Ogallah of Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance says the non-committal stance of annex 1 countries to the treaty and other historical obligations accounts for the frustrations African groups and the civil society keep experiencing in various COP meetings.
He says such frustrations and shifting of goal posts led to the civil society walkout from the 2013 COP Meeting in Warsaw, Poland.
He encouraged the African negotiators to press forward without relenting.
At the Lima talks, the African group of negotiators urged developed countries to ratify an extension of the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol.
They also urged developed nations to show leadership in tackling climate change effects by ratifying the binding treaty.
Nagmeldin Elhassan, the chair of the African Negotiating Group, says ratifying the second commitment period is the only way Africa and developing nations can take developed countries seriously on commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
He says by ratifying the agreement, the developed countries will build confidence among African countries suffering the brunt of Climate change that they are committed to reducing the suffering of the people due to climate change.
“We would like to encourage all parties to speedily ratify the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol to show progress under the new legal agreement under the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. That will be amicable to all parties. But what we have observed is annex 1 party is reneging, abandoning and weakening the commitment of the Kyoto protocol.”
Ratifying the agreement legally binds rich nations responsible for industrial pollutions to cut their emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases under specified targets of 15 to 30 per cent by 2020, and 60 to 80 per cent by 2050.
Major polluting countries can either do this obligation directly or indirectly by helping developing countries with the required finance for capacity building, adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer among others.
At the Lima talks, developed countries committed themselves to mobilising US$100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020 to support climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.
However, the African Group at the UN Climate change talks expressed concern that the pledge is far below expectations, affirming that the figure can only be considered a baseline for climate action.
“Recent pledges to the Green Climate Fund are a small first step, but funding around $2,4 billion per year is not close to the actual need, and is a far cry from the US$100 billion pledged for 2020. Lima should provide a clear roadmap for how finance contributions will increase step-by-step to 2020,” says Seyni Nafo, African Group spokesperson.
According to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change will have widespread impacts on the African society and in their interaction with the natural environment.
Climate experts say the impact will be severe on food security, water availability and human health.
They also say it will have far-reaching effects on prices, supply chains, trade, investment and political relations in some countries.
In addition, they acknowledge that climate risks are threatening lives and prosperity of many people across Africa.
Climate change impacts will also increase risks of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems, increase risks of loss of rural livelihoods and income due to insufficient access to drinking and irrigation water and reduced agricultural productivity particularly for farmers on the continent.
Risks due to extreme weather events will also lead to the breakdown of infrastructure networks and critical services such as electricity, water supply, health and emergency services in Africa, the IPCC says.
Given this scenario, there is need to sufficiently reflect on the full range of climate change issues and spur action at all levels to strengthen mitigation and adaptation mechanisms.
Conference hopping is not bringing tangible results. Even as African negotiators push their demands, tangible progress will remain elusive as major polluting countries renege on their obligations.
As is the norm at all major climate change conferences, rich nations will spread ‘good feelings and good intentions’ to ease worries of the hard-pressed global south community.
There will be much talk about “goodwill” and very little on real proposals on the table.
And, as delegates troop out Lima, they were left stuck in the same standoff that has all but paralysed global climate talks over the past several years.
Developing nations continue to press rich nations to accept deep, mandatory carbon cuts, and pay tens of billions of dollars in aid to help poor countries combat global warming.
Rich nations are squeamish about committing to extreme measures as they are feeling the squeeze of the global economic downturn.
In the end, it seems, we will just keep running in circles with rich nations pledging and not delivering and poor nations demanding and not getting any penny.
