Can Africa’s impetus afford GHG cuts?

Kudzanai Gerede
As Africa’s industrial revolution gradually gains momentum, the positive industrial endeavour takes place at a time when the continent and the rest of the world are seized with seeking ways on mitigating and adapting to extreme weather changes, which are now manifesting larger than ever before. Nations are forging ways to fight the calamitous effects of climate change which if left unchecked have the potential to reverse economic efforts to sustain livelihoods across the globe with African economies being the most vulnerable as they are still agro-based prompting the need to diversify through industrialization.

As the UN Climate Conference, dubbed the Conference of Parties (COP 21) scheduled for December in Paris fast approaches, under -developed Africa has to find and consolidate its position on the way forward and should contemplate on how it will be able to sustain cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and accelerate its industrialization agenda at the same time.

Studies show that Africa’s fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions are very low both in absolute and per capita and although its total emissions might have grew twelve-fold since 1950s reaching 311 million metric tons of carbon in 2008 but the volume emitted as a continent is still less than emissions for some single nations like China, the US, Japan, India and Russia.

The World Bank’s 2009 report showed that South Africa produced approximately half of Africa’s carbon emissions which translated to 1.5 % of the world’s total and this would mean the entire African nations contributed less than 5% of the global carbon emissions and the reason being much of Africa’s economies is still not yet industrialized.

The Kyoto Protocol which came into effect in 2005 saw developed countries conceding responsibility of being the major culprits for global emissions leading to global warming since the inception of industrialization in the 19th century and pledged to finance and provide technologies towards mitigation and adaptation of climate change to developing nations.

Most of Africa’s economies are still agro-based and the impact of climate change has hideous effects on regional economies which even the most diversified and developed African economy, South Africa is already in panic mode as an evidently dry agricultural season has put its 750 000 workforce formally employed in agriculture sector at risk of job losses. Globally another 100 million people are expected to add onto the already surging figures of the poverty stricken.

For Africa this calls for urgent mechanism to adapt to the changing times if these agro-based economies can be sustainable at the same time find mitigation measures to either conserve or diversify their economies through a massive industrialization process to sustain livelihoods of its people.

For the developed economies already gone past the industrialization processes cutting their carbon emission to the levels of 1990 and still sustain their economies can be a workable scenario as some have achieved more so they have the finance to technologies and installation of expensive clean energy equipment.

“The bone of contention between developing and developed countries is on responsibilities because the convention (Copenhagen) states clearly that the developed countries have a responsibility to finance and provide technologies and find means of implementation for developing countries to adapt and mitigate climate change,” says Shingirai Nangombe, Principal Climate Change Researcher, Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate.

While the developed countries such as the USA argue that developing countries should also put something on the table, Africa’s level of development is still not sufficient enough to be compared to what the developed nations emit. There has been ambiguity between developing and developed countries especially in the case of China and India. China joins the United States as the two leading global carbon emitters but China is still regarded a developing nation as its GDP per capita shows, and this has prompted the developed countries to argue that China should also contribute towards climate financing.

“There has been commitments that have been entered for developing countries to bankroll $ 100 billion annually till 2020 and not much has been seen so far, and now developing countries cannot just start reducing their greenhouse emissions without the means to do so,” adds Nangombe.

Africa’s attempts to cut emissions considering that it already produces insignificant volumes as compared to its international counterparts face several tests. Most of its emerging economies like Nigeria, Angola, Sudan and Libya among others solely depend on oil which accounts for hundreds of billion dollars gross domestic product and giving up fossil fuels for cleaner renewable energy will be economic suicide and will require a longer time and huge financial resources which are currently unavailable.

Economies like that of Zimbabwe cannot afford to let go of precious resources like coal deemed to be environmentally hostile when such an energy sources is at its disposal and much of its outdated industrial plants were anchored on coal driven power.

Tapping into clean energies like solar and wind have already proven to be too costly for most African economies and the old industrial plants still running these economies can just for now be given leeway to operate until a time when development has taken place and rendered capacity to replace them.

Another test is on how it intends to finance its intended national determined contributions (INDCs) aimed at adapting to climate change and mitigating the emissions before cutting on industrial productivity. “Zimbabwe needs 90 billion by 2030 for mitigation and adaptation purposes in the fight against climate change,” says Nangombe.

“We have come up with an adaptation strategy, we realized we need funds towards irrigation, waste management and agricultural productivity, so do this Zimbabwe need US$ 35 billion and the huge chunk has to come from pledges from developed nations as per agreed and on mitigation we have to construct solar stations, ethanol blending, reviewing our transport systems and green growth strategies and that requires and additional US$ 55 billion,” he says.

With much of the developed economies in the Euro zone strained by the migrant crisis and a general slump in the global economic outlook the funds towards climate change are likely to sour, but the unrelenting voice from developing nations on reparations for climate change damage as weather extremes have started to bite will surely create an impasse between the two camps in Paris.

One participant at a climate change meeting quizzed, “if negotiations about colonialism and slave trade failed, why will you expect those on climate change to work ?”, but one can only draw hope in the fact that this time around both ends of the table are victims to the issue at hand.