Climate Changes for Africa

"We will witness instability in rainfall, disease spreading, sea level rise and floods. One other effect of climate change is to send Africans further and further to seek water. This brings them into conflicts with other Africans. We will face wars on African soil that are not created in Africa."

These words by Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, the former chairperson of the Africa Group at the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations provides a striking reminder and warning that climate change is more than just about floods or droughts but rather a serious phenomenon that has the capacity to destabilize Africa.

For example, in the Darfur region, climate change has escalated the crisis with competition for scarce water in refugee camps, and scarce land between farmers and herders sparking serious conflicts in the arid region. According to the United Nations, more than 1.4 million people have been displaced, while thousands others have died since the crisis erupted in the Darfur region in 2003.

In the North Rift and North Eastern regions of Kenya, climate change and human pressures on natural resources have induced violent pastoral conflicts that have resulted in some locals migrating to new lands.

The complexities of climate change also saw Kenya and Uganda at one point coming to an agreement to demarcate Lake Victoria using bright beacons so that fishers from both countries do not cross into another border. This was after longstanding clashes between fishers "encroaching into another country's waters" in search of better and bigger fish.
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Although tension has been fairly well managed, increased migration, droughts and livestock disease may spark grazing wars, as communities fight over existing and new lands.  Over the next 50 years, the continent is expected to suffer from more frequent and intense droughts and floods, more unpredictable growing seasons, and higher average temperatures. This global challenge was not caused by Africa, but by industrialized countries, yet the continent is the hardest hit due to limited financial resources to adapt to such changes. There is also the need for the global community to honour its pledges to provide climate change finance in the form of grants and not loans. Increased aid was promised in 2009 to help developing countries to cope with climate change, to reach $100 billion a year after 2020, from $10 billion annually 2010-12. However, few have met the pledges,

Africa and other countries of the South want the highly polluting nations of the north to cut emissions to at least 40 percent below the 1990 levels by 2020 - demands that are also being challenged by the highly polluting countries. UN climate talks held in Warsaw, Poland in late 2013, industrialized countries rejected calls to set targets for 2013-19, meaning that progress towards a proposed new global climate treaty will be stalled.

Africa has made a commitment to speak with one voice at the ongoing climate change negotiations, because disunity could leave the continent exposed to manipulation which would leave the continent prone to climate change induced effects of migration and conflicts, which have the capacity to destabilize.

Africa has an abundance of renewable energy sources which, if fully harnessed, could boost power generation in the region. According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), the continent has the potential to become a "gold mine" for renewable energy due to the abundant solar and wind resources that are now hugely sought after by international investors in their quest for clean energy. Africa is slowly turning to renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro and wind - which are less polluting to the environment compared to other forms such as coal.

African famers are making changes to their crop and livestock varieties that are more variable and tolerate to extreme conditions. For example, farmers in Zimbabwe are using new varieties of locally developed maize that matures faster than traditional varieties, as they require less water.  Local communities in the Zambezi River Basin have developed systems of gathering, predicting, interpreting, and decision-making in relation to weather. The communities are timing the fruiting of certain local trees, the water level in streams and ponds, the nesting behaviour of small quail-like birds, and insect behaviour to forecast any changes in the environment such droughts or floods.

Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who told African leaders at the recent Summit  "By the intelligent application of centuries-old indigenous knowledge, acquired and conserved by African women who have tended crops in all seasons, within the first few years bumper harvests were being reported. Agronomists consulted women about the qualities of various grains - which ones survived low rainfalls and which thrived in wet weather; what pests threatened crops and how could they be combated without undermining delicate ecological systems."

Another key intervention for Africa is improving access to accurate information about climate change and climate change induced conflict. The African media has been identified as an important player in the global effort to combat the impacts of climate change, particularly in early warning, management and resolution. Empowering journalist on reporting climate change has resulted in more people knowing the various measures that are available to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

It is a start and demonstrates the possible potential for the future - but we all understand that the hurdle is always capitalism and the need to make profits. For real change for the better we need socialism

Africa: Can Corporations Influence Climate Talks?

At the recent 19th United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Warsaw, negotiators from the Global South welcome a focus on financing adaptation - but reject a new emphasis on a role for the private sector.
Climate negotiations have now dragged on for almost 20 years. Talk of "fair, ambitious and binding" agreements to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming appears to be fading, to be replaced by proposals to turn to the private sector for loans and investment to support adaptation to climate change at what has been dubbed the "Corporate COP (Conference of Parties)".

Tosi Mpamu-Mpamu, a negotiator for the Democratic Republic of Congo and a former chair of the African Group of negotiators, sees an alarming change emerging in the approach to funding the response to climate change. At the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, developed states pledged 30 billion dollars of new aid for climate finance for the developing world between 2010 and 2012, and a further 100 billion by 2020.
"Developed countries are now shifting the responsibility to provide funding to the private sector, a dangerous trend to these negotiations," said Mpamu-Mpamu.
Other negotiators share Mpamu-Mpamu's concerns over the role transnational corporations are assuming at the conference. "At a three-day conference prior to this COP, businesses spent two days explaining how they could make money out of climate change," said Rene Orellana, head of Bolivia's delegation.
And, said Pascone Sabido from the Corporate Europe Observatory, the corporations assuming prominence at the COP are also the biggest emitters of carbon. He criticised the U.N. for accepting sponsorship for COP19 from major polluters like steel giant ArcelorMittal and the Polish Energy Group (PGE), saying these companies were influencing the negotiations.
"You wouldn't ask Marlboro to sponsor a summit on lung cancer, so why is it acceptable for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change?" he said.

Rachel Tansey, researcher at the Malaysia-based NGO Environment and Economic Justice, says big business wants to see climate finance - public funding - directed towards projects that corporations can profit from. And the governments of the developed countries are listening. "[Transport and energy giant] Alstom is lobbying for so-called "clean" coal, controversial technologies that allow them to continue profiting from burning fossil fuels, like carbon capture and storage, and for more nuclear power," said Tansey.

But COP19 president Marcin Kolorec said there was nothing wrong with inviting the private sector to participate in parallel meetings at the conference. He said industries have been given a chance to take part in the same way that non-governmental organisations are, adding that such dialogues have been a feature of the talks since the COPs started. "We have to be transparent and inclusive," he told reporters, adding that the Warsaw talks were a build-up to a possible global agreement in 2015 in the French capital, Paris. He said industries were given a chance to participate at the COP just like non-governmental organisations, adding that such dialogues have been part of the COP since it started. He said there is no chance that industry will influence COP decisions because they are not part of the formal negotiations.

Swaziland's Emmanuel Dlamini, the chair of the Africa Group of negotiators, said that despite some risks, bringing business on board is not such a bad idea.
"For developed states to come up with the finance, they need to mobilise the business sector," Dlamini told IPS. He echoed the COP president in underlining that business is not taking part in the actual negotiations. "But," he said, "there is the danger of the private sector influencing decisions through proposals they sell to their governments which could be brought into the COP negotiations."
For Dlamini, the main challenge is to clearly define climate finance. Since the Copenhagen conference, he said, a lot of aid to developing countries has been classified as climate assistance.

"Yes, there has been money flowing, but to what extent is it climate finance?" wondered Dlamini. In Swaziland, for instance, he said, money coming from the European Union's Official Development Assistance for poverty alleviation is now considered climate finance. "We need a reliable fund for climate change like the GCF," said Dlamini.

Meena Raman, from the observer group Third World Network, says completing the setting up of the Green Climate Fund would be helpful because it is a grant fund that will directly benefit poor countries. Presently headquartered in South Korea, with operational funding of just seven million dollars, the Green Climate Fund does not as yet have a cent for projects.
"That's where developing countries are saying the 100 billion dollars should go to, a matter still under discussion," said Raman.

from here

Can corporations influence climate talks? You bet!