Africa can help “decarbonize” the global economy if developed countries invest seriously to “unleash” its “potential” in this area, Kenyan President William Ruto confided on June 5, 2024 in an interview with AFP.
Coming to Seoul this week for an Africa-South Korea summit, where the latter pledged $24 billion in aid and investment support for Africa, Mr Ruto called on rich countries to do more for the clean energy transition on the continent, from technology transfer to financing. “We see the effects of climate change everywhere,” he said, citing the example of Kenya which has recently experienced extreme drought and devastating floods.
Africa wants to “be part of the solution”, he adds, deploring that the continent is being sidelined from climate efforts, an allusion to recent investments in the field of renewable energy, including only a tiny part was directed to Africa.
– “Use our strengths” –
“We need greater investments on the African continent to unlock African potential, which may not only benefit Africa alone,” he emphasizes. “We can use the assets we have in renewable energy, our mineral resources, our human capital on the continent, to decarbonize, not just our production and consumption, but also global production and consumption.”
This requires “an international financial architecture that gives the countries that suffer the most and yet have contributed the least, the best chance of resisting and adapting,” he continues. “This is why we have encouraged the international financial architecture to be more agility, more flexibility, and to provide resources for developing countries, in particular Africa… Because at the moment, we are paying five, six or seven times more than other countries” in other regions, estimated the President.
The aid announced last week by Seoul aims to give African countries more means to adapt to climate change and manage its effects. In 2009, developed countries promised to mobilize some 100 billion dollars per year until 2020 to help poor states invest in clean energy and deal with the effects of global warming.
They achieved this objective for the first time in 2022, assured the OECD at the end of May 2024. But if these 100 billion dollars are “a step in the right direction”, more will be needed, underlines Mr. Ruto. Experts estimate that developing countries need well over $100 billion to develop renewable energy and take adaptation measures such as coastal defenses against rising sea levels.
According to a UN estimate, these countries (excluding China) will need 2.4 trillion dollars per year to meet their climate objectives and needs.
– ” Equity “-
Financing climate policy is a thorny subject in annual discussions at the United Nations and negotiators have been busy this year trying to raise the $100 billion target. Azerbaijan, an oil country and host of COP29 this year, has made it a priority and hopes to secure an ambitious agreement during the Summit in November 2024. Earlier this year, Kenya was hit by torrential rains, amplified by the El Niño phenomenon, which has killed around 300 people in floods since March 2024, according to the Government.
Mr Ruto said his Administration was working at all levels to make the country more resilient to extreme weather events. “We are increasing our forest cover from 10 to 30 percent,” he said, adding that the country would plant 15 billion trees. Kenya’s forests are key to Africa’s growing carbon markets, with the country accounting for some 25% of these trades. “It’s a whole series of ecosystems, meadows, forests, our national parks…”, lists Mr. Ruto. The idea is to promote communities that “are home to meadows and forests,” he emphasizes.
“This is a very new space,” said Mr. Ruto, calling for the establishment of a global regulatory mechanism to “ensure that there is fairness and no exploitation” .
© Afriquinfos & Agence France-Presse
