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NAIROBI. — Climate change is “relentlessly eating away” at Africa’s economic progress and it’s time to have a global conversation about a carbon tax on polluters, Kenya’s president declared yesterday as the first Africa Climate Summit got underway.
“Those who produce the garbage refuse to pay their bills,” President William Ruto, a host of the summit, said to an audience that included senior officials from China, the United States and the European Union — some of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
The rapidly growing African continent of more than 1.3 billion people is losing 5% to 15% of its gross domestic product growth every year to the widespread impacts of climate change, according to Mr Ruto. It’s a source of deep frustration in the resource-rich region that contributes by far the least to global warming.
He and other leaders urged reforms to the global financial structures that have left African nations paying about five times more to borrow money than others, worsening the debt crisis for many. Africa has more than 30 of the world’s most indebted countries, Kenya’s Cabinet secretary for the environment, Soipan Tuya, said.
Mr Ruto said Africa’s 54 countries “must go green fast before industrializing and not vice versa, unlike (richer nations) had the luxury to do.” Transforming Africa’s economy on a green trajectory “is the most feasible, just and efficient way to attain a net-zero world by 2050,” he said.
Meanwhile, a newly-published report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has revealed that countries in Africa are suffering disproportionately from the effects of climate change despite producing only a fraction of the world’s greenhouse gases,.
The State of the Climate in Africa 2022 report was published at the start of the Africa Climate Week gathering in airobi, and highlighted that while the damaging effect of extreme weather is being experienced at an ever-greater pace, financial aid to fight its impact is failing to keep up to speed, with consequences being felt in areas such as food security and causes of migration.
“Africa is responsible for less than 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But it is the continent which is the least able to cope with the negative impacts of climate change,” said WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas.
“Heatwaves, heavy rains, floods, tropical cyclones, and prolonged droughts are having devastating impacts on communities and economies, with increasing numbers of people at risk.”
The report was produced jointly by the African Union Commission and Africa Climate Policy Centre of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, or UNECA.
“Africa, like other regions, has come to terms with the reality that climate change is already happening,” explained Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment at the African Union Commission.
“Left untamed, the coming decades and years would easily be characterized by severe climate-induced pressure on the continent’s economies, livelihoods and nature.
The report highlighted that more than 110 million people across Africa suffered the direct effects of weather, climate, and water-related hazards last year, leading to a reported 5 000 deaths, largely through drought and flooding, although the figure could be much higher, and also causing more than US$8.5 billion of economic damage. – ChinaDaily.com-AP
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