NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The first African climate summit opened with statements from heads of state and others calling for a stronger voice on a global issue that most affects the continent of 1.3 billion people, even if they are the ones who contribute the least.
Kenyan President William Ruto’s government and the African Union opened the ministerial session on Monday as more than a dozen heads of state arrived, determined to exert greater global influence and win more money and support. Among the first speakers were young people who called for a greater voice.
“We have seen this as a problem for a long time. There are also immense opportunities,” said Ruto about the climate crisis and spoke of billion-dollar economic opportunities, new financial structures, Africa’s enormous mineral wealth and the ideal of shared prosperity. “We are not here to catalog complaints.”
And yet there is some frustration on the continent at being asked to develop cleaner methods than the world’s richest countries, which have long been responsible for the bulk of climate-threatening emissions, and to do so while receiving much of the promised support still persists not showing up.
“This is our moment,” Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance told the crowd, asserting that the annual flow of climate aid to the continent is about $16 billion, a tenth or less of what is needed, and “a fraction” of the budget of some polluting companies.
“We must immediately ensure that the $100 billion that rich countries are pledging annually to developing countries for climate finance is delivered,” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Poor countries received more than $83 billion in climate finance in 2020, up 4% from the previous year but still far short of the target set in 2009.
Kenya alone needs $62 billion to implement its plan to reduce domestic emissions that contribute to global warming, the president said.
“We have abundant clean, renewable energy and it is important that we use this energy to fuel our future prosperity. But to open it up, Africa needs funding from countries that have grown rich off our pain,” Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa said ahead of the summit.
External participants at the summit include US climate envoy John Kerry and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who said he would address funding as one of the “urgent injustices of the climate crisis”.
“Of the 20 countries most affected by the climate crisis, 17 are here in Africa,” Kerry said.
Ruto’s welcome video released before the summit focused on reforestation but made no mention of his government’s decision this year to lift a multi-year ban on commercial logging, which alarmed law enforcement. The decision was challenged in court, despite the government’s assurances that only old trees could be used on state plantations.
“When a country like us hosts a conference, we have to set a good example,” said Isaac Kalua, a local environmentalist.
Kenya gets 93% of its energy from renewable sources and has banned single-use plastic bags, but has struggled with other eco-friendly adaptations. Trees were cut down to build a highway that some of the summit participants would use to travel from the airport, and charcoal made from local trees is sold on street corners in Nairobi.
Ruto arrived at Monday’s events in a small electric vehicle, unlike regular government caravans, on streets carrying dilapidated buses and trolleybuses.
Elsewhere, nearly 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, despite the enormous potential of solar energy and other renewable sources.
Other challenges facing the African continent include simply the ability to predict and monitor the climate to avoid thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage, which, like climate change, has impacts far beyond the continent.
“When the apocalypse comes, it will affect us all,” Ruto warned.
Associated Press writer Desmond Tiro contributed to this report from Nairobi.