Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Activists hoped Egypt's COP27 would bring a focus on Africa. They were disappointed

Story by Ivana Kottasová • CNN

The crowd was loving what Bhekumuzi Bhebhe had to say, cheering loudly as he yelled “don’t gas Africa!” into the megaphone.

On GPS: Can the world hit its climate targets?
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Standing under the baking Egyptian sun at the COP27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday, Bhebhe, a South Africa-based climate campaigner, was protesting against what he says is an attempt by rich countries to bribe Africa into investing in planet-warming fossil fuels.

In his mind, it’s yet another example of the hypocrisy western countries have showed toward the continent – which has barely contributed to the climate crisis but is experiencing some of its most devastating effects.

“Is this justice?!” he asked his fellow protesters. “No!” the crowd yelled back.

Bhekumuzi Bhebhe speaks at a protest against the development of new fossil fuel projects in Africa.
- Ivana Kottasova/CNN

The Egyptian government, which is hosting and presiding over the UN-sponsored climate talks, had promised this year’s summit would finally be the “African COP” that would put the needs of the continent front and center.

Unfulfilled promises


But according to many representatives of countries across Africa, that promise remains largely unfulfilled.

Mohamed Adow, the director and founder of Power Shift Africa, a non-governmental organization focused on accelerating renewable energy there, said at an event on Sunday that the developments so far show the conference was “African in the name only.”

Any hopes that the summit would really focus on Africa were dashed early, when the conference participants denied a request by a group of African governments to include a discussion about the continent’s “special needs and circumstances” on the official agenda.

Philip Osano, the director of the Africa Center at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told CNN that the recognition of the special circumstances was one of the top three priorities for many African governments, along with climate finance and the clean energy transition.

“Africa contributes less than 4.8% of emissions, but the impacts have now become very serious, that’s why this is a priority item,” he said.

“The bad news is, it’s off the agenda. But it’s very complicated, because other parts of the world – especially small island states, developing countries – everybody is kind of having a special circumstance when it comes to climate.”

Mithika Mwenda, the Kenyan co-founder of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, said he was “outraged” by the decision not to include the discussion on the agenda. Speaking after the item was struck, Mwenda said the development “set the stage for another COP that will fail millions of Africans dying unjustly” from climate change.


This year's climate conference was widely billed as "Africa COP."
 - Ivana Kottasova/CNN


Paying for loss and damage


Some of the leaders of countries that are most vulnerable to the climate crisis – many of which are in Africa – have come to Sharm el Sheikh with high hopes that developed countries would finally agree to pay for the loss and damage already caused by climate change.

The idea is simple: countries that got rich using fossil fuels that have caused the crisis should help those that are most affected by it deal with the devastating consequences.

Going into the summit, leaders of climate-vulnerable countries said this was their number one priority, and there was hope that a new funding facility could be established this year. But negotiations have proven tough. Some of the richest countries are united in pushing against the idea of setting up a new fund.

The United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom have all been trying to kick the can down the road, saying they want to establish a “process” that would lead to an “outcome” by 2024.

But for countries that are seeing their coasts disappear and their people drown in devastating floods or starve because of droughts, that is not good enough.

“We had pledges, statements and commitments. But we need comprehensive proposals. We already have concept notes, we already have proposals, we already have our [emission cutting plans], we need to move into implementations,” Edward Bendu, the chief environmental officer at Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment, told CNN in an interview at the summit.

Bendu, who is representing a country that is among the most impacted by the climate crisis, said that access to existing climate finance is difficult and that the current financing options are not fit for purpose.

“It takes about three four years to access funds,” he said. “That’s too late for us, we can’t address the loss and damage issues that way.”

There have been some positive movements coming from the summit. Germany has been spearheading a new loss and damage program called the Global Shield that it hopes would make money available faster for countries suffering from weather disasters.

The EU and several of its member states announced Wednesday they “will provide over €1 billion ($1.04 billion) for climate adaptation in Africa.” The bloc also said it would add €60 million ($62.2 million) to the loss and damage pot.

But as is often the case with climate finance announcements, the devil is in the detail.

Delving into the figures, it emerged that of the €345 million ($357 million) the European Commission would contribute to the package, only €220 million ($228 million) is a “new commitment,” according to a statement released Wednesday.

The rest of the €345m was already pledged elsewhere in the past. And as for the €60 million for loss and damage, that money is included in the €220 million rather than being an additional sum. The EU didn’t give a breakdown on the contributions from individual states. CNN has contacted the bloc for comment and more details on the announcement.

For the developing world, the bottom line remains that the promise of funding remains unfulfilled. Under the Paris Agreement, rich countries pledged to provide $100 billion a year in climate financing to developing world by 2020. Two years after the deadline, the target has still not been met.

Energy front end center

The battle over Africa’s future energy infrastructure has emerged as one of the key issues at the summit.

Around 600 million Africans don’t have access to electricity and almost a billion don’t have clean cooking facilities, relying instead on burning solid biomass, kerosene or coal as their primary cooking fuel, according to the International Energy Agency.

Experts and activists are stressing that many African countries are getting locked in fossil fuel investments that are polluting and will likely prove uneconomical in a few years.

It is not a hypothetical issue. Many of the world’s richest countries are pushing for more fossil fuel investments in several African countries as they try to wean themselves of Russian gas because of the war in Ukraine.

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Dakar earlier this year and held talks with the Senegalese president Macky Sall – the chair of the African Union – about the development of a new offshore natural gas field. And earlier this month, the Italian energy giant ENI started exporting natural gas from a new deep sea gas field in Mozambique.

These developments are making activists particularly furious.

“It’s a hypocrisy and we are calling it out,” said Omar Elmaawi, a Kenyan activist who has spent years campaigning against the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which is meant to transport oil from Uganda to Tanzania, where it could be sold on international markets.

“Africa has contributed very little to the climate problem, but the fossil fuel companies are using that to their advantage. They say Africa has been left behind and therefore they want to explore the potential so that they can help us develop,” Elmaawi told CNN.

“But that narrative doesn’t hold up because although they’re calling it ‘development’ they want to exploit these resources and send them into the Global North,” he added.



Kenyan climate activist Omar Elmaawi poses for a picture at the COP27 summit in Egypt. 
- Ivana Kottasova/CNN

Elmaawi said he understood the money big fossil fuel companies are offering may look like a lucrative option to some African governments. But he and his fellow activist say they want their governments to think about the future.

“My assessment has always been either our government leaders are really ignorant and stupid, or, some of them have been compromised and they are not working in the best interest of their people,” he said.

What Elmaawi, Adow and other activists want is for the COP27 conference to help African countries foster more investment into renewable energy.

According to the IEA, Africa has around 60% of the world’s best solar-energy resources, but only 1% of installed photovoltaic capacity.

Adow said Africa could easily become a renewable energy superpower.

But instead, he said, “European countries want to turn Africa into their gas station.”

Why the energy transition is so tough for Africa: 600 million people still have no access to power


Story by Jacopo Prisco • CNN
Thursday, Nov 17,2022

Africa’s energy sector faces a huge challenge: how to bring reliable access to electricity to hundreds of millions of people, while containing carbon emissions.

Currently, the continent only produces 3% of global greenhouse emissions, although it’s home to one fifth of the world’s population. Nearly all of Africa’s 54 countries have signed the Paris Agreement on climate change, and many have committed to reach net zero by 2050. However, much of the population still lacks access to electricity.

Ahead of COP 27, CNN’s Eleni Giokos discussed this and other topics at Africa Energy Week in Cape Town, with Verner Ayukegba, Senior Vice President of the African Energy Chamber, which works with businesses in the continent and promotes energy growth.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How would you describe the current state of Africa’s energy portfolio to a global audience?

Ayukegba: With 600 million people without any kind of access to energy, and 900 million people — mostly women and children — without any access to clean cooking fuels, we need to focus on investing significantly into generating power for all of those people. At the African Energy Chamber, we have decided to champion making energy poverty history by 2030. We need to throw everything at it, because at the core of development there is reliable and affordable energy. If you don’t have that, there’s no point talking about access to education or healthcare.

How do you reconcile this developmental challenge with the climate change agenda?

Ayukegba: We shouldn’t have it as a binary situation in that sense. We need to make sure that we solve, of course, the climate issues, but also the power issues. You do not have to get people into a situation where they have to choose either to have a job, or not have a job because of the climate situation.

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We need to be able to look at gas-to-power solutions to ensure that people have the power that they need. We need to transition, but we need to consider the social aspects of the transition. I think people miss that a lot and say, “Close this coal mine,” but what they don’t see are the families, the communities, that have grown in and around these industries. So when you talk about transition, it’s not just about power, it’s about people. It’s about people’s lives.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres last year referred to a UN climate report as “code red for humanity.” Does that worry you in terms of what that will mean for Africans?

Ayukegba: It absolutely does, but the thing is, you have to go where the pollution is and ask those who are polluting to cut the pollution.

Africa has several oil and gas-producing nations, but often they are not able to meet their own demand for energy, and end up importing refined oil products. How is that going to change?

Ayukegba: It is certainly not a new problem, and I think the authorities in many of these African countries are trying to address it. Obviously, it’s something that should have been addressed for some time.

It’s fair to say that Nigeria, with a number of projects, is looking to grow infrastructure internally to be able to address that. It’s appalling, there’s no running away from that, but we need to be able to address those deficits and certainly, the governments are trying to.

What do you think the messaging should be at COP27?

Ayukegba: We are going to be there to support a transition towards renewables and towards a world that goes closer to net zero. What we are saying, however, is that you can’t transition in Limpopo [South Africa] in the same way you transition in New York. You certainly cannot transition in London, or in Berlin, or in Stockholm in the same way you transition in Lagos. We have to be realistic about these things. If not, people won’t take us seriously.

Do you feel that African voices were taken seriously at COP26?

Ayukegba: No, clearly not. For anybody who has a constituency with 600 million people without power, you need to talk differently about these issues. We are seeing the problems and the issues that farmers are already having — longer droughts and all of that — and so we agree at the Chamber that we have issues with energy transition, with the way that the climate is changing. However, if in the US your fridge uses more power in a year than an African family, where do we start in terms of addressing the problem?

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