Baku — As expected, climate finance has taken center stage in Baku COP29 in a bid to renew the global focus on finance as a means to transform climate ambitions into tangible, sustainable action.
African countries are losing up to 5 per cent of their GDP, with many diverting as much as 9 per cent of their budgets to respond to climate impacts.
More than USD 2.5 trillion annually in conditional and unconditional financing between 2020 and 2030 will be needed to implement Africa's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) or efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the climate change impacts. Towards this goal, the continent has defined its COP29 irreducible minimums.
"On climate finance, for Africa, success at COP29 rests on achieving an ambitious, transparent, and time-bound finance goal, aligned with the assessed needs of developing countries. Central to this goal is public international finance that is provided as grants, based on a burden-sharing agreement among developed countries, in line with their obligations under the Convention and the Paris Agreement," says Ambassador Ali Mohamed, Kenya's Special Envoy for Climate Change and Chair of the African Group of Negotiators.
On Africa's position and expectations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Mohamed said, "The NCQG Text shared by the co-chairs was completely imbalanced. It was trying to redefine the agreed articles of the Paris Agreement. The matters of climate finance are properly stipulated under Article 9; and we, as people from the developing world, were not comfortable with that, so it had to be completely set aside following our submissions."
Speaking in the context of Africa's significant climate-related challenges such as severe droughts in the whole of the southern region, devastating flooding episodes in the Horn after a terrible five seasons of drought and more than a million people in West Africa displaced by climatic vagaries, he stated that Africa is pushing for a commensurate goal on climate finance to deal with these challenges.
"We did commit during the Dubai conference last year that the world will be transitioning towards a low carbon- and climate-resilient environment that requires investments and adequate and reliable financing. So that is what we are pushing for. Now, a funding figure in the range of trillions of dollars has been given by many groups. And that is the discussion that is currently going on. There is no contention about the magnitude of the amounts required for the global community to transition. And that is what Africa and other developing countries are pushing for here," he stressed.
"I am participating as a representative of the communities. We are suffering severely from climate change and we are inpatient to see progress towards delivering funds to African countries through the loss and damage Fund. We have been discussing losses and damages for some town now but we need to see the money. We must define clear goals for adaptation and follow through with finances for its implementation," Cheikh Fadel Wade from the Waterkeeper Alliance movement in Senegal told IPS.
Wade says the financial needs are no longer in the billions but trillions as the loss and damage is everywhere you look. Those who come to Bargny, a coastal town just outside the capital Dakar see the climate destruction, cracked and collapsed walls, damaged and leaking roofs, and even sunken buildings are common due to rising sea levels caused by rising temperatures.
Africa may need as much as USD 580 billion annually by 2030 and USD 1.7 trillion annually by 2050 for loss and damage alone. Greenpeace Africa top demands for COP29 includes the "implementation of a Climate Damages Tax on fossil fuel companies to fund loss and damage reparation. Significant increase in public climate finance through the NCQG, prioritizing African nations' adaptation and mitigation needs."
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Other key demands from Greenpeace include establishment of strong safeguards against false solutions such as carbon offsets that threaten Africa's carbon-dense ecosystems. Concrete commitments for a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels Recognition and elevation of African voices, including youth activists, indigenous communities, and civil society organisations in addressing the climate crisis.
Overall, Mohamed stressed that the agreed financial commitment should "address the adaptation, loss and damage, and mitigation needs of developing countries, including just transitions. The decisions from this COP should send a strong signal to the international finance architecture, underscoring the need for reform and addressing debt sustainability challenges for developing countries, particularly the high cost of capital."
