By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Nov 7 2022 – Africa is counting on COP27 to deliver it from climate change. But will it?

Global leaders from more than 125 countries gather in the resort city of Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for the 27th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), from November 6-18, 2022. The UNFCCC is a global treaty mandating signatories to prevent “dangerous human-induced interference with the climate system by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations”.

The Convention puts the responsibility of cutting dangerous carbon emissions on the shoulders of developed countries. The major carbon emission emitters are China, the European Union, the United States, Australia, Japan, India, and Russia.

Africa contributes 3.8 percent of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuels and industry. However, it is experiencing significant impacts from climate change.

From Angola to Zimbabwe, cyclones, floods, high temperatures, and droughts are killing and displacing millions of Africa as climate change upends a continent unable to cope with its devastating impacts.

Dubbed the ‘African COP’, COP27 convenes in a changed world experiencing a combination of economic and political crises, including food and fuel crises. There are mixed expectations on how to save the world from a fiery Armageddon as climate change rises. For Africa, more is expected from COP27 than at any other time.

The money and adaptation COP

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN) says Africa is expecting to see the implementation of commitments made at COP26 for advancing the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and addressing the adverse climate change.

“African countries have committed the most ambitious NDCs under the Paris Agreement now the priority should be how to implement these targets. And for these, developed countries should deliver on their climate finance pledges,” Selam Kidane Abebe, Legal Advisor to the AGN, explained.

Abebe contended that the special needs and special circumstances of Africa are a priority for the AGN, as the recognition was reflected under the UNFCCC decisions. Such recognition is also important as Africa contributes less of the total historical and current emissions, and climate change is impacting Africa’s development trajectory, so even if African countries have strong development plans, their trajectory is going to be impacted by the adverse impacts of climate change,” she said, noting that African countries were investing up to 9% of the GDP on adaptation, money that should be invested in development sectors.

In 2009, developed countries committed to giving $100 billion annually until 2020 to help developing countries reduce emissions and cope with climate change. The money never came, and this target has been moved to 2023. Will it ever arrive?

“We hope so because it is the responsibility of developed countries to come forward with it,” Ambassador Wael Aboulmagd, Special Advisor to the COP27 President, told a media briefing in the buildup to COP27 last week.

“In all reality $100 billion is not going to solve the problem; it is not even close to addressing a fraction of the climate needs… the numbers are in trillions. The overall financial landscape needs to be revisited,” Aboulmagd noted, convinced that developed countries must be nudged to find a workable solution in climate finance.

Loss and damage

Finance is at the heart of the COP27 negotiations. Africa is anxious for a solution to the issue of loss and damage and is pushing for finance to address loss and damage as a result of global warming.

At COP27, the argument is that developed countries largely responsible for climate change should pay for the loss of life and damage to property and infrastructure, not to mention economic and cultural losses endured by developing countries that do not have the means to deal with the impacts of climate change.

An argument has been toyed with is that why not allow African countries to raise their emissions levels and develop their economies as developed countries did in industrializing? In Egypt, Africa is hoping to get commitments towards a specific loss and damage facility. Developed countries are reluctant to pick up the tab.

While countries have strengthened their commitments to tackle the climate crisis, climate change is not letting up. Floods in Nigeria,  Pakistan, and South Africa, droughts in Kenya and Somalia, and food crises in the Horn of Africa have led to massive deaths and huge damage to homes and infrastructure that cannot be recovered. Who will pay for the climate damage?

“COP27 must provide a clear and time-bound roadmap on closing the finance gap for addressing loss and damage, ” UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said last week at the launch of the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report. He argued that: “This will be a central litmus test for success at COP27”.

Climate change is hitting Africa hard, and extreme weather could cost the continent $50 billion annually by 2050, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Human activities, largely the burning of fossil fuels like coal, gas, and oil, have released emissions that are causing global warming.

According to scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), life would be threatened should global temperatures rise beyond 1.8C. The Paris Agreement pledges have meant to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C.

The COP Presidency is convinced a balanced approach that meets various interests is needed. Questions abound on what should be the arrangement for loss and damage,  what kind of funding entity will be there, and who shoulders liability and compensation.

“As the COP27 Presidency, we are impartial and want all parties to be on the same page to agree and address all these issues. I  think we have a good chance of doing that at this COP,” he said, expressing optimism that loss and damage will be on the agenda.

Hot energy finance

Despite some countries developing new and revising their NDCs, to raise their emission reduction targets in line with the Paris Agreement, switching to clean energy and phasing out coal has been slow. Rising fuel prices as a result of the Ukraine war have flipped the script. Some developed countries are increasing subsidies for fossil fuels, while others have fired up coal plants and natural gas lines to fill the energy gap. Even China has recently approved new coal mines.

But should Africa – yearning to boost industrialization – abandon fossil fuel dependence and join the race for renewables?

“The speed of this energy transition should not be the same for every country around the world, many African countries are languishing in extreme poverty, and they make the case that if we are being told to keep that resource underground for the global good then the international community has to come up with a package to allow us otherwise to eliminate poverty and pursue our sustainable development goals,” opined Aboulmagd.

He said while there is a global case for emissions reduction targets and transition to renewables, developing countries cannot just be told to quit fossil fuels without financial support to go green. A tailored approach for every country, depending on its circumstances, is called for.

“It is essentially telling people to stop having energy; by the way, Sub-Saharan Africa has less than 20 percent access to energy in their entire population. We need to make sure that when we make a demand of a country it is a reasonable one that they can reasonably be expected to do without almost devastating their development objectives and poverty reduction elimination objective,” he urged.

Time for talking is over; action now

A UN report released last week found that the world is off track in meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperatures below 1.5°C by the end of the century.  The Emissions Gap Report 2022 warns that the window is closing and that the world must cut carbon emissions by 45 percent to avoid global catastrophe because governments have failed to effect adequate cuts as pledged since COP26 in Glasgow.

The report finds that, despite a decision by all countries at the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow, UK (COP26) to strengthen Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), action has been poor and ambition low that the world could be facing a temperature rise of above the Paris Agreement goal of well below 2°C. The report shows that current policies alone will lead to a 2.8°C temperature rise highlighting the gap between actions and promises.

“Climate adaptation may not seem like a priority right now,” says Inger Andersen, United Nations Environment Programme, Executive Director, opined. “Even if all commitments are implemented immediately, the reality is that climate change is going to be with us decades into the future. And the poorest keep paying the price for our inaction. It is, therefore, imperative that we put time, effort, resources, and planning into adaptation action.”

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By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Nov 7 2022 – Arms are raised, stretched out towards the sky, holding white cards with the word “peace” written in different languages. A girl, a refugee from Syria, reads the Rome’s “Appeal for peace”: “With firm conviction, we say: no more war! Let’s stop all conflicts […] Let dialogue be resumed to nullify the threat of nuclear weapons.” Pope Francis singed it in front of the people gathered at the Colosseum, holding the word “peace” in their hands, as representatives of the world’s religions did as well. Shortly before, members of those different religions gathered for prayer to invoke peace in their different traditions—a prayer that is “a cry” inside the ancient amphitheater.

“This year our prayer has become a heartfelt plea, because today peace has been gravely violated, assaulted and trampled upon, and this in Europe, on the very continent that in the last century endured the horrors of the two world wars – and we are experiencing a third. Sadly, since then, wars have continued to cause bloodshed and to impoverish the earth. Yet the situation that we are presently experiencing is particularly dramatic…”, the Pontiff warned. “We are not neutral, but allied for peace, and for that reason we invoke the ius pacis as the right of all to settle conflicts without violence,” he added.

The same “raised hands” marched for peace on Saturday in Rome when around 100.000 people from different organizations called for a ceasefire in Ukraine and in all the other armed conflicts.

The prayer with the Pope was the last act of a three-day interreligious dialogue, held at the end of October in the Italian capital and introduced by the presidents of the French and Italian republics, Emmanuel Macron and Sergio Mattarella. The first convocation was in Assisi, in 1986, willed by John Paul II. Since then, it has been promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Christian community whose fundamentals are prayer, serving the poor and marginalized, and peace. For the role it has played in mediating conflicts, it has been named the “UN of Trastevere” after the city center neighborhood where it is headquartered and where the peace agreement in Mozambique was signed thirty years ago.

Flags at the rally for peace in Rome on Saturday. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Leaders and believers of various religions and secular humanists have woven relationships, prayed, and confronted each other. They hand over a map drawn by many voices, too many to account for in the space of an article. “The cry for peace” meeting is also an invitation to “do”. It offers a map of concrete steps, things done and to do, best practices, imagination, with a key word: dialogue. “And dialogue does not make all reasons equal at all, it does not avoid the question of responsibility and never mistakes the aggressor with the attacked. Indeed, precisely because it knows them well, it can look for ways to stop the geometric and implacable logic of war, which is [escalation] if other solution are not found”, explained Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference.

World scenarios are made even more worrying by the risk of nuclear escalation in the Ukrainian war—a war on the doorstep of that part of Europe that has cultivated peace inside, but that has let armed conflict flourish elsewhere. “The lack of this commitment [outside Europe] let the war reach its borders, indeed—in some ways—penetrate within it, even in its deepest fibers,” said Agostino Giovagnoli, historian of the Community of Sant’Egidio. “Today war threatens Europe also because it threatens the alternative imagination which is at the basis of the European architecture. War, in fact, is banal: it does not consist only of a fight on the ground but it is also a form of ‘single thought,’” he added.

This “single thought” has changed the European attitude, according to Nico Piro, special correspondent and war journalist of the RAI, the Italian national public broadcasting company. “After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Europe as in Italy, a political monobloc in favor of [fighting] has emerged from right to left. It is standing out what I named ‘PUB’ [Pensiero Unico Bellicista], a Bellicist-Single-Thought … [It] projects a stigma on anyone who asks for peace, on anyone who has a doubt or raises a criticism of the idea that fueling the war serves to end it […],” he said. “What has peace become then? No longer a tool to stop and prevent armed conflicts but a by-product of war.”

Yet, among the many voices that met in Rome, one word resounds, whispered and then said: kairos. The “critical moment” is now. The war in Ukraine is the “wake-up call” that must be grasped, that cannot be missed, widening our view from Europe to those never-ending conflicts all over the world. Among the many lessons from Sant’Egidio’s dialogue, two should be learned to grasp that kairos: working together daily to build peace in every single life and returning to working together as a community of states, relaunching the multilateral message.

Sant’Egidio’s interreligious dialogue “The cry for peace”. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

“Whoever saves a single life saves the whole world,” the Talmud says. Or “an entire world” as Riccardo di Segni, chief rabbi of Rome, suggested, since every human being has the potential to create “a new, unique world.” Thus, peace means recognizing the value of each single life, in sharp contrast to the logic of war, in which “the life of the enemy is no longer life. It’s not the same. [That’s] war, [which] dehumanizes everyone a priori in the name of life,” according to Mario Marazziti, member of the Sant’Egidio community. This also happens here, in Europe, where those fleeing wars, hunger, and persecution are allowed to die at sea, “dehumanized,” reduced to numbers.

Unique are the lives to be saved, but also unique are the lives of those who save and of those who build peace by “taking care.”

Gégoire Ahongbonon has a chain in his hand. He puts it around his neck and shows the heavy metal rings to the audience. There was a man chained with that same metal, naked, tied to a tree, like many others. His only fault was a psychiatric disorder. Ahongbonon saved over 70,000 people, “sentenced to death” because they were ill. He is the founder of the Association Saint Camille de Lellis that works in five countries of sub-Saharan Africa. He asked a tough question: “Are we different from them? Are we different from this person, we? […] What did they do wrong? They were born like all of us.”

Saving those lives is already making peace, eradicating the roots of violence and discrimination and planting those of peace, as Mjid Noorjehan Adbul is doing in Mozambique. She is the clinical head of the network of centers for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, opened by Sant’Egidio’s DREAM program, a program of excellence operating in 10 countries. She, a Muslim, is surprised when people ask her why she works with Catholics: “We all have the same goal,” she replies. For twenty years, she has been working to ensure health care for those who cannot afford it. In fact, she was the first one to use antiretroviral therapy in her country. “There is no peace without care,” she said, quoting Pope Francis – “care” for eradicating “the culture of waste, of indifference, of confrontation.” Ex-patients, like those “women who have experienced the stigma firsthand and put themselves at the service of other ill people,” are now helping to build a new health culture – she explained.

Saving lives, restoring hope, choosing the paths of dialogue, and designing an architecture of peaceful coexistence should also be the aim of politics. The multilateral message, legacy of the twentieth century’s “unitary tensions,” however, needs new impetus.

“Those who work for peace are realistic, not naive!” Cardinal Zuppi said. Realistic as it was Pope Bendetto XV that called for an end to the “useless slaughter” that was the First World War. He had a very clear vision of the need for a multilateral architecture, a league among nations that could guarantee lasting peace. A realistic way to design the future still seems to be the one built on a permanent, global agorà that creates space for dialogue. “No multilateralism, no survival,” argued Jeffery Sachs, a speaker at one of the fourteen forums that shaped the meeting agenda. However, the United Nations – the organization founded on the ruins of the Second World War to make the “no more war” reality – risks to be “delegitimized”. That’s something to be avoided, according to Zuppi. “… We are aware that the United Nations is a community of nations. Its every failure represents a weakening of international determination and makes us all losers,” warned Shayk Muhammad bin Abdul Karim al Issa, general secretary of the Muslim World League.

Today, however, multilateralism needs to adapt: “We need a multilateralism that is just and inclusive, with equitable representation and voice for developing countries”, said Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, Undersecretary for Africa in the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affaris and Peace operations. “At heart of [UN’s effort to adapt] is the need to engage earlier and proactively, and not to wait react to a crisis after it has escalated”, she added. A multilateralism that does not act only after a conflict breaks out, but that is able to prevent it and to build peace also by supporting “the resilience of local communities”.

The Kairos, the right moment, is now even if there is war in Ukraine and elsewhere because peace must be built even when war is raging. “How to live now?” wonder those who have seen the destruction and the ferocity of an armed conflict, like Olga Makar, who took care of Sant’Egidio school of peace in Ukraine. “This is the question every Ukrainian asks him or herself. In those first days of war, when I felt my life was broken, I found an answer: our houses are destroyed, our cities are in ruins, but our love, our solidarity, our ability to help others, our dreams cannot be destroyed”.

Words that echo in those of Pope Francis: “Let us not be infected by the perverse rationale of war; let us not fall into the trap of hatred for the enemy. Let us once more put peace at the heart of our vision for the future, as the primary goal of our personal, social and political activity at every level. Let us defuse conflicts by the weapon of dialogue”.

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By Rana Ghoneim
VIENNA, Nov 7 2022 – Ahead of this year’s COP27 in Egypt, industry and government representatives from 15 developing countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa met in a series of consultations about the challenges and opportunities they face in decarbonizing some of their most energy intensive industries like steel, cement and concrete.

A report from these consultations – which were organized by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), where I work – will be released during COP27’s Decarbonisation Day (Friday 11 November) and should be widely-read by decision-makers across energy, environment and industrial sectors.

During these meetings, it was evident that the pace of progress so far is too slow and that puts us at real risk of not meeting global climate commitments. It simply won’t be sufficient for industrialized countries to lower emissions within their boundaries and enforce restrictions for products entering their markets. This must happen everywhere.

Global action and new forms of inter-sectoral cooperation are urgently needed to address critical questions including: what are the opportunities for emissions reductions, and what is needed to deliver these reductions in the fastest and most economical way?

How do we speed up the development and implementation of new carbon-cutting technologies – and ensure that they are widely accessible and affordable, including to small and medium sized enterprises?

Currently, many developing country governments do not have reliable and up-to-date data on the emissions of their different industries and how they compare internationally. Relatively little has been established so far in the way of infrastructure to facilitate the widespread introduction of new and emerging technologies for industrial decarbonization.

Access to and know-how about low-carbon technologies is largely concentrated within industrialized countries and large multinational companies.

This must change. For industrial decarbonization efforts to succeed, we need to see significantly increased investments in research and development into new technologies – but we also need to scale up the deployment of technologies that exist but are not yet widely available, including those for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).

We also need to much more widely implement strategies and technologies that are already available and affordable – including on energy efficiency, which lowers the demand for energy including from renewable sources.

This likely requires new funding for technical assistance to help make markets in developing countries ready and able to implement low-carbon technologies. It’s not just about funding individual projects, but about really coming up with more meaningful ways to partner around spreading technology our planet urgently needs. Industrialized countries cannot leave developing ones to ‘do this on their own’.

Some of the steel and cement (which is also used to make concrete) businesses working in developing countries are multinational companies which are bringing decarbonizing technologies into their operations from abroad. This is a good thing.

But there are also local companies – including within the supply chains of these multinationals – which need to be involved in order to make decarbonization succeed.

In India, for example, more than half of the steel manufacturing industry is small and medium sized enterprises without the same access to these technologies. Does this local market currently have the technical capacity to adopt and service new hydrogen fuel installations, for example?

Unfortunately, the answer is: Not really.

In many cases, these local companies will likely be unaware of the need to actually change their practices to move towards something that’s low-carbon – let alone how to do this and what technology options exist to help them. The speed of change needed means that the world cannot wait for them to do this alone.

Governments everywhere have a role to play here, in ensuring that their policy frameworks drive decarbonization, promote the right technologies and prevent the proliferation of production processes that aren’t low-carbon.

Imagine: If construction products are in demand in a developing country and they’re not already or sufficiently available on the market, a company or investor may see an opportunity to set up a new business – and if stringent regulations aren’t in place, they might do this using outdated technology with higher emissions.

Decarbonization is not the mandate of small steel and cement manufacturers, as participants noted in the pre-COP27 Asia consultation, or their area of expertise.

It is an area that requires collaboration across different sectors – including to get better and more detailed data, and measurement, reporting and verification frameworks on emissions that can help guide government, and industry, decision-making.

Steel and cement companies might often be seen by some of the public as ‘bad guys’. Globally, these sectors do currently contribute about 50% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

But they produce essential materials to build our houses, schools and cities and are needed for our growing communities. The demand should not be to stop production today, but to make it low-carbon today.

Without more meaningful global partnerships on industrial decarbonization, there’s a big risk that we won’t be able to deliver on our climate commitments. We cannot afford this.

Countries and industries globally need to move all together towards the same climate goals at the same time. Cooperation – including on policy, infrastructure development, and technology – will be key to doing this.

Rana Ghoneim is the Chief of the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Division, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna.

Country consultations mentioned in this op-ed, which will be released during COP27’s Decarbonization Day (Friday 11 November), will be available on the website of UNIDO’s Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator.

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By Gadir Lavadenz and Lidy Nacpil
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 7 2022 – The 27th Conference Of Parties (COP27) on Climate Change comes at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges due to the magnitude and the interconnected nature of our multiple structural crises. The world’s average temperature is now at 1,1℃.

For many years now, we have been experiencing irreversible damage to the planet, and the loss of homelands, cultures, ecosystems, on a daily basis. Record-breaking heat has hit North America, Europe, China, Australia, India and Pakistan, sparking wildfires in many places. More than a third of heat-related deaths in summer from 1991 to 2018 occurred as a result of human-caused global warming.

European and Latin American cities are among the worst affected by summer heat deaths due to the climate crisis. Terrible floods have swept Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, and South Africa. Super typhoons have brought untold damage to people and communities in the Philippines, the Caribbean, the Pacific and the gulf and southern areas of the United States.

But does COP really hold any value anymore?

We have been seeing consistent efforts to dilute the outcomes of previous climate change conferences, often driven by the world’s fossil fuel addiction and intensive lobbying of big polluters prioritizing their agenda of greed and profit over the lives of billions of frontline communities suffering the devastating impact of climate crisis daily.

At COP 26, the Glasgow Outcomes were presented as if they were more relevant than the Paris Agreement (which is legally binding). The UK presidency had enough time to build up a narrative around false solutions, including the charade of net zero targets for all by 2050 (undermining again the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) through carbon offsets and nature-based solutions that further continue with the agenda of commodification of nature for the profit of the same usual polluters.

World governments, especially rich countries have consistently failed to deliver on their climate finance commitments of $100 billion per year. This annual goal urgently needed by grassroots communities to mitigate and adapt to climate change has not been met even once by the governments.

There has been constant pushback for a loss and damage finance facility and mechanism that can support vulnerable countries and peoples on the ground recover from climate change induced disasters. Loss and damage were only introduced in the COP27 agenda after consistent push by civil society groups globally.

The climate conferences are increasingly becoming spaces for greenwashing of not just the big polluters’ crimes, but also of the regimes and presidencies hosting COP. COP27 is taking place in the Southern Sinai city of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and as all eyes turn to Egypt, the campaigns to Free Alaa and other political prisoners, as well as for civic space to open up in Egypt, is gaining momentum.

As the world leaders and negotiators gather for the summit, it is not only communities in Sinai that continue to suffer from the increasing violence of climate impacts but peoples everywhere, with the most marginalized – peoples of color, Indigenous Peoples, communities in the Global South, frontline communities, women and children – hit first and hardest.

It is imperative that we stand in solidarity with impacted and frontline communities everywhere and reiterate our demands for urgent and drastic action to justly address the climate crisis.

At COP27, DCJ will continue with its struggles and demands for profound social transformation and the achievement of immediate concrete results in terms of drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and enabling peoples to deal with the impacts of the climate crisis.
Like other global crises, climate change arises principally from historically unequal economic and social structures, from practices and policies promoted by rich, industrialized countries, and from systems of production and consumption that sacrifice the needs of the many to the interests of a few.

And it is the communities around the world that have contributed the very least to climate change that are paying the highest price–their lives and livelihoods.

We demand from all governments that if international negotiations are to mean anything, they must deliver outcomes that will prevent catastrophic climate change and ensure just and fair sharing of drastic emission reductions in keeping with the goal of limiting the rise of global average temperature to below 1.5º C.

We demand an end to pursuit and implementation of false solutions disguised in the form of nature-based solutions. We demand that rich countries deliver fully on their obligations to provide adequate and appropriate climate finance on the basis of countries’ responsibility for climate debt and as part of reparations to all affected peoples.

We demand mechanisms that ensure climate finances are rewound to the empowerment and benefit of peoples and communities most impacted by the climate crisis. We demand that developed countries support appropriate technology transfers without intellectual property rights barriers.

Will COP27 be another COP where rich countries and big polluters gather to impede the calls of communities fighting for their lives and livelihood every day? No, we cannot stand back and let that happen. COP27 must deliver a strong message to the world that the multilateral system can still play a role in fighting the climate crisis.

It cannot be remembered as just another meeting, but as a moment to show major progress through real solutions. It must generate outcomes towards an urgent reset of the system. A moment to abandon the old, profiteering, polluting world order, and a time to reimagine and rapidly implement global collaboration that centers equity, science, humanity.

We don’t have to tell you what another failed COP will mean for people and the planet.

Gadir Lavadenz is Global Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice;
Lidy Nacpil is Coordinator, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, Manila

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