Thirty-one years after the Rio summit, about 12,000 people from Africa and across the planet descended on Nairobi for the maiden edition of the African Union’s Africa Climate Summit (ACS).

That this was the first time the African continent was organising an event with the climate emergency as its main focus shows just how unserious the continent that bears the biggest burden of the climate emergency has treated the matter.

The New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development has tackled the issue in the past, but not quite on this scale. Better late than never, they say, so let us put that in the plus column.

Regrettably, the Africa Climate Summit was another reminder that climate negotiations are, to borrow Nnimmo Bassey’s famous metonymy, “lost and damaged”. It was COP lite.

On prend les mêmes et on recommence, as they say in French. We take the same actors and conditions and do a makeover, this time only with more chaos in the accreditation centre (the queues! It took 10 soldiers an eternity to find my pre-printed badge) and more disregard for civil society organisations (Vanessa Nakate’s intervention was given the graveyard slot after the “important guests” had exited the main conference room and were already having nyama choma, kachumbari and ugali somewhere in town.

The summit was all about money. Money, money, money. Corporate solutions, and pretty much more of the same. That was already obvious in the grandiloquent theme of the gathering (Green Growth and Climate Finance for Africa and the World), but still. Financial and corporate solutions dominated the discussions as well as the final declaration.

It is a bit embarrassing that of all the leaders who spoke at the summit, the only one who mentioned the words “Mother Earth” (ie the fact that nature exists for nature’s sake, not just to be plundered and exploited by human beings, and that what we are seeking to do is really to replace anthropocentric ontologies with ecocentric ones), the disproportionate burden that is borne by women in particular due to global heating, as well as the necessity for South-South cooperation in problem solving, was Colombia’s vice-president, Francia Elena Márquez Mina. Not an African.

Another speaker who adopted a decidedly more ecocentric stance during his interventions was UN secretary-general António Guterres, who said, “it is time to end the injustices that are holding Africa back”. Again, not an African.

The chairperson of the African Union, Moussa Faki Mahamat, and the African Union Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, must be patting each other on the back right now for a job well done. However, we must question if the climate summit is going to help roll back global heating in a meaningful way or just become another part of the multilateral slow grind.

Let us get into it.

The summit of African heads of state and governments and foreign dignitaries 

The Africa Climate Summit was divided into three parts: the African heads of state and governments, monarchs and foreign dignitaries’ workshop on day one; the ministerial day; and finally, the declaration and closing event on the third and final day. The UNFCCC’s Africa Climate Week also happened in the same week.

On the sidelines there were workshops (African Union, African Development Bank, Lake Chad Basin, etc), bilaterals, as well as an expo centre. There was obviously a Kenya Tourism Board initiative plugging the country’s attractions hard. As they should.

Twenty African presidents showed up for the event, which is quite remarkable, as well as US climate czar John Kerry, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Guterres.

Ruto even absolved the countries that are responsible for the climate emergency of the primary responsibility in fixing the mess that they created.

Right out of the blocks, the host president, Kenya’s William Ruto, underlined the topic that would dominate the discussions: finance! In his opening remarks he mentioned that “we must see in green growth not just a climate imperative but also a fountain of multibillion-dollar opportunities that the world is poised to capitalise (sic)”.

The rest of his speech was littered with business-friendly language: “I invite us to adopt an opportunity lens…”; “the unparalleled opportunity that climate represents for Africa…”; “an unparalleled gold mine…”; “everybody’s assets are in their balance sheet; some of our assets are not in the balance sheet”; “we can be a region that helps others achieve their net zero objectives…”; “trillions of dollars are looking for investment opportunities as the need to decarbonise our economies heightens”. Etc.

Ruto even absolved the countries that are responsible for the climate emergency of the primary responsibility in fixing the mess that they created: “the conversation of North vs South must come to an end; the conversation of who did what is not a luxury we can afford.” It was clear from that moment on that African leaders wanted to play nice in order to get something in return.

Read more in Daily Maverick: African leaders call for new global taxes to fund climate change action

One by one, African leaders came and rattled a litany of grievances. Africa contributed less than 4% of global CO2 emissions but was bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. They were dealing with the challenges by planting trees, but more was needed for adaptation and mitigation. They urged the countries of the Global North to honour their Paris pledges.

While it is true that Africa produces less than 4% of annual global emissions and that it has some of the world’s most efficient carbon sinks, including the Congo Basin rainforest and the west African rainforest (Liberia, Sierra Leone, etc), it would have been nice to hear someone put a clear face to the climate disaster. As ambassador Josefa Sacko said, “climate change is a pandemic in Africa”.

In recent times, we have seen:

• About seven coups in west Africa’s “coup belt” where decades of drought and searing heat have decimated the flora and fauna, causing some of the worst malnutrition and precarity that exists anywhere in the world;
• Multiyear droughts in the Horn of Africa that have been causing displacement, crop failures and an increase in child malnutrition;
• The first famine caused by climate change in Madagascar;
• Multiyear droughts in southern Africa that killed millions of livestock in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe;
• Rainfall and flooding that claimed dozens of lives and washed away thousands of homes in South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and many other countries in 2022-23;
• Etc.

Instead, Africa’s political class arrogated to themselves the role of mediator between the continent and foreign investors, although they do not face climatic shocks in any significant way. 

Ursula von der Leyen, just like other world leaders, outlined the very hard work that they had already done to tackle the climate crisis. She mentioned the parts of the EU Global Gateway initiative that had allocated €1-billion to unlock investments in green initiatives in Africa, from dams in the DRC to strengthening government capacity elsewhere.

Interestingly, that is the same amount of money that they are giving Tunisia to stop migrants from crossing over into Europe.

Von der Leyen underscored that the EU’s future climate action would be built around three pillars: 1) attracting private capital to Africa (green bonds and the like); 2) carbon pricing and markets (pricing for polluter-pay policies); and 3) carbon targets for every entity. 

The Ministerial Day

On day two, the big news was that access to the Tsavo Hall, where most of the dignitaries’ workshops had been arranged, was cut off to most of the 12,000 delegates invited to the gathering. In other words, most people in attendance should not have made the trip. Henceforth, access would be limited to the large contingent of delegates from Europe, America, the African Union and African governments.

Civil society organisations were largely limited to either watching the discussions from the safe distance of spill-over rooms or following discussions between UN agencies and civil society elsewhere.

Many of the consultants and governments from the Global North were eager to tell Africans that they had a great opportunity to end energy poverty through green initiatives. However, all this was built around concessional and non-concessional loans.

One could have registered for the conference, downloaded the app and followed the key parts online, because they were also streamed on some platforms.

Of course, Kenya may have known beforehand that they needed to cut off access to some meeting rooms, but they wanted delegates to make the journey before they pulled the plug. Twenty-thousand delegates, artists, vendors, etc to accommodate, feed and entertain over five to seven days – that is a lot of revenue for the country.

Many of the consultants and governments from the Global North were eager to tell Africans that they had a great opportunity to end energy poverty through green initiatives. However, all this was built around concessional and non-concessional loans.

Take the hydrogen panel for example. There were discussions about how blended finance could help Africa rapidly scale up its green hydrogen potential. South Africa’s electricity minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, said that work was under way to develop a South Africa-Namibia hydrogen corridor. Policies were at an advanced stage of preparation to unlock investment from private capital.

Similarly, the US assistant secretary for international trade and development, Alexia Latortue, underscored the need for private capital to come to the party. She also stressed the need for concessional and non-concessional financing to flow into Africa, and for that, Africa needed to create the right policy frameworks and capacity.

Colombia’s former president, Iván Duque Márquez, remarked that although Africa emitted less than 4% of global greenhouse gases (GHG), negative land use on the continent was too high. He encouraged African nations to conserve more. In return, the continent’s conservation efforts could be rewarded in the form of investments in carbon credits as well as green and blue bonds. They were not perfect, but it was necessary to start somewhere.

There were quite a number of other interesting civil society events. The current secretary-general of United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG Africa), Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, hosted an important panel on what African cities were doing to both decarbonise and prepare for the increasing impacts of climate change.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Africa Climate Summit ends with call for action and pledge of $23bn in investment

Most of the attendees agreed that African cities were largely helpless in the face of climate change. They were reacting with their own funds, with little else coming from outside. Waste collection and management is often never spoken about in many African cities and there are often piles of rubbish everywhere. Some, like the Malian activist Rokia Doumbia, who speak up against this situation, end up in jail for “abusing and insulting the president”.

Other discussions focused on restorative agriculture, clean cooking solutions, the modus operandi of carbon markets, reforming development finance institutions, ending energy poverty in Africa, green industrialisation, mining and metallurgy. The First Lady Pavilion focused on providing a gender lens to the discussion topics that affected women the most.

Day three: the African Leaders Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action

On 8 September, 2023, Ruto announced that $23-billion worth of investments and pledges had been struck during the conference. These included:

• A $4.5-billion finance initiative to unlock Africa’s clean energy potential (announced by COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber);
• A $12-million deal between Kenya and the EU to kick-start a hydrogen value chain in Kenya;
• A $1-billion African Development Bank & Global Centre on Adaptation initiative to finance youth-led businesses and start-ups across Africa;
• A $450-million purchase of African carbon credits by United Arab Emirates investors by 2030;
• A $30-million African Development Bank initiative for food security and climate resilience in Africa;
• A matching $30-million US government initiative for food security and climate resilience efforts in Africa; and
• £34-million announced by the UK for new projects across 15 African countries to help women, at-risk communities and more than 400,000 farmers build resilience against the effects of climate change.

Kenya also scored some deals with Germany (debt relief), the Bezos Earth Fund (forest restoration) and Camco (debt funding).

The summit then adopted the African Leaders Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action.

First, the good.

The Nairobi Declaration is, at long last, a demonstration of African leaders stepping up to the challenge of climate change. That it took them this long to mobilise high-level efforts to deal with the challenge in a continent that bears the biggest burden of climate crises is baffling.

The Nairobi Declaration calls for an urgent transformation of multilateral development banks (MDBs) so that they start treating African countries and entities fairly.

As Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, said during the conference, MDBs “were not created with us in mind and that still shows today”. Too often, African entities are considered risky bets and so they get money that is four or five times more expensive than the rates being offered to nations and entities in the Global North.

Too many African countries are also dealing with astronomical amounts of debt, and for that reason they cannot react to the most basic needs of their citizens. Something has to be done about that and it is good that the conference called that out.

The Africa Climate Summit… must also stop acting like beggars and explicitly call out those who are responsible for global heating.

The Nairobi Declaration calls for a global tax regime to finance climate action. A tax regime is a good idea, but it cannot be global. It must be paid by the nations and corporations that are responsible for dumping the CO2 that is causing the challenges that we face today.

These entities are known and they are still raking in billions in profits as they ramp up pollution. Oil and gas giants raked in more than $220-billion in 2022. We know that BP, Shell Global and ExxonMobil are responsible for damaging millions of hectares of prime arable land across the planet.

We know that pesticides and chemicals companies like Corteva, Bayer, ChemChina and others dump large amounts of toxic chemicals into our waterways every year.

We know about Coca-Cola and plastic bottles, banks that funded slave ships, colonial plantations, large-scale commercial farms in Africa, funding of polluting industries and so on. Meek supplication is not going to coax just and fair reparations out of these offenders.

What would be revolutionary would be to demand the imposition of heavy taxes and fines specifically on these companies and the countries that enabled their behaviour for so many years. While Ruto may want to absolve them of any responsibility, to do that would not be climate justice.

Those who bear the brunt of climate change – women and children – are only portrayed as victims and mere props to justify the begging bowl that is being held out.

The decision to establish the Africa Climate Summit as a biennial event convened by the African Union and hosted by AU member states is a good decision, long overdue. That said, its format must change. Its core constituency must be the African people. It must also stop acting like beggars and explicitly call out those who are responsible for global heating.

Now for the really bad.

In addition to what I have already mentioned above, the document is too long. There is no need to say in eight pages what could have been said in two or three.

Second, the Africa Great Green Wall Initiative, an AU project that has the potential to restore degraded forests and build resilience in the Sahel, was not a priority at the summit. It was invisible. That this was the case at a time when the Sahel is literally burning is confounding. One only needs to look at the parts of the Sahel where regreening is happening to realise what can be achieved if local communities and clear support come together.

Third, the primary audience of the African Leaders Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action is foreigners, specifically Global North entities, not Africans. The Africans mentioned once or twice in the document – the youth and smallholder farmers, the custodians of the environment – are mere accessories. Those who bear the brunt of climate change – women and children – are only portrayed as victims and mere props to justify the begging bowl that is being held out.

Third, there is too much focus on a neoliberal trickle-down growth paradigm to development, the only difference being that this time they want it to be green: “attracting local, regional and global investment”; “propelling Africa’s economic growth and job creation”; “focusing our economic development plans on climate-positive growth”; “advancing green industrialisation”.

Where the African Climate Summit needed to explicitly name and shame perennial abusers for their toxic behaviour, we saw only meek supplication for peanuts.

Massive inflows of foreign capital to develop industrialisation policies within current economic paradigms will yield the same results with a few beneficiaries (the connected urban elite) and a legacy of poverty and inequality elsewhere on the continent.

Young people are thoroughly fed up with politics-as-usual. They want system change, a new way of life that is not based on constant industrialisation and plunder of the environment.

Also, the time has come for the African Union to appoint a climate commissioner. The declaration does not say anything about this.

Conclusion: My take

Interestingly, the Synthesis Report of the Technical Dialogue of the First Global Stocktake that was released by the co-facilitators on Friday, 8 September – two days after the end of the Africa Climate Summit – had this to say: “Key finding 4: Global emissions are not in line with modelled global mitigation pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, and there is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

The Synthesis Report in many ways calls out the ACS and its corporatised solutions as part of the problem.

Where the African Climate Summit needed to explicitly name and shame perennial abusers for their toxic behaviour, we saw only meek supplication for peanuts.

Where African leaders needed to demand reparations and transfers of free technology and resources to the Global South as payment for centuries of plunder, exploitation, transfer pricing and illicit financial flows, etc, people kept talking about concessional and non-concessional loans. Loans to further enrich polluting nations!

Where innovative ideas for a democratic, indigenous, people-led transformation of the environment were required, we only saw more neoliberal trickle-down policies that place venture capital, Global North lobbyists, banks and polluting nations at the heart of the climate solution.

This is bound to fail. We are going to see the same kind of tokenism that is synonymous with diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and then it will be on to the next conference.

Where Africa needed to launch a wider South-South discussion for fair policies, the continent’s leaders locked themselves in rooms with venture capital from the Global North to beg for pledges.

It is time for African leaders to break with the typical cap-in-hand behaviour that only attracts money for themselves and their cronies in capital cities.

The other Africa, that is the majority, those who protect the planet and look after it day after day, demand radical ideas for a just and fair transition. DM