Environment: What is the purpose of the Nairobi Declaration?
Par Moustapha Diaby
Posté le: 25/09/2023 13:16
It is no longer an open secret that Africa as a whole contributes only 2% to 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.Thus, putting pressure on the largest emitters on the planet is the mission set by organizations and some observers, including Sabine Ndzengue Amoa who, speaking at the last African climate summit, said: "It is to put pressure on other countries to tell them that the time has come to move in the right direction".
Indeed, on September 6, 2023, Nairobi hosted the African Climate Summit which ended with the signing of the "Nairobi Declaration" unanimously by the 54 States present.
The text aims to serve as a basis for Africa's common position in the global process on climate change up to COP28 and beyond. In addition to adopting a common position ahead of the next COP28, the countries of the South intend to remind developed countries of the commitments made in 2009, but not yet kept. Commitments to provide $100 billion for climate finance.
The signatory States believe that Africa has suffered, and continues to suffer, the dramatic consequences of the practices of the countries of the North deemed not to comply with environmental requirements. Already in 2022, Kenyan President William Ruto had insisted on the issue at the opening of COP27 in these terms: "Loss and damage are not the abstract subjects of an endless dialogue. This is our daily experience and the living nightmare suffered by millions of Africans."
To this end, priority is given to sustainable financing through concrete investments, particularly in the clean fossil fuel sector and debt relief.
However, grey areas exist, Sabine Ndzengue Amoa notes with regret that the so-called fragile countries are not able to pool all their strength for greater efficiency. Referring to VANUATU which has carried out a project alone at the UN. It also calls into question the issue of debt combined with development aid, which, according to several observers, has not met the objectives that had justified its establishment.
That said, it appears difficult, if not impossible, to fight effectively against global warming while having to face its debts in a period of permanent inflation.
Let us hope that beyond the speeches that hardly touch the public anymore, COP28 will be able to provide concrete answers in a world increasingly exposed to the adverse effects of climate change.