Africa is waking up on climate change. For too many years, Africa 's governments seem to have watched the conflict among Northern governments about the Kyoto Protocol as spectators. Insisting on the particular responsibility of the industrialized countries, they wait until the North gets its act together.
But an African Proverb says; “If elephants fight, the grass gets trampled”. Africa can no longer afford to remain the silent grass that gets trampled as the European Union and United States fight over the Kyoto Protocol. Avoiding dangerous climate change is of utmost importance for the dignity and survival of Africa 's people. Far from being just a nature protection issue, climate change is becoming an invisible hand behind agricultural decline, social disruption, and migration. True, the causes for climate turbulence are to be found mainly in the North, yet their destructive effects will mainly hit the South. In fact, the innocent are going to be the victims. It is therefore high time to stop indulging in a warm feeling of good conscience and rise against this form of the 21st century colonialism.
This time, colonial destruction comes without imperial powers and without occupying armies. Instead, it comes through the air, invisibly and insidiously, tele-transported through atmospheric chemistry. Once the Earth warms up, nature destabilizes. Suddenly, rainfall, water-levels, temperature, winds and seasons, all conditions which since time immemorial have provided habitats hospitable to plants, animals and human beings as well, cannot be taken for granted any longer. As adverse conditions arise, habitats become less hospitable.
The dangers are greatest for those who are most vulnerable. As it happens, not every citizen of the world is equally exposed to climate turbulences. It is the disadvantaged in society, whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by climate change. People are being forced to leave their homes and homesteads. Migration to cities is increasing. And diseases affect those with the least defences – the poor. Indeed, the threats caused by global warming are by no means equally distributed among the world population; they disproportionally fall upon the socially weak and powerless. It is the poor who will have to bear the brunt of climate risks, not the rich producing them.
Bringing down the use of fossil fuels among the global consumer classes is therefore imperative, not just for the protection of the atmosphere, but for the protection of human rights. A person's right to physical integrity is at the core of any canon of fundamental rights which the state is required to guarantee. But millions of people especially in Africa are about to lose this centrepiece of citizenship. In this case, though, it is not state power which assaults physical integrity, but the accumulated and tele-transported impact of excessive fuel combustion in the affluent parts of the world. But in an unfolding world society, nobody can any longer be sacrificed on the altar of growth and affluence. If every person is considered to possess world citizenship, the minimal equity rule implies that the choice of energy base by the well-off should not exacerbate existing inequities, leaving the already underprivileged worse off than they are today. Building emission-poor economies in the North, but also in the emerging economies of the South is therefore a matter of basic justice.
The effects of climate change are coming in the disguise of statistics. If you smoke and get cancer, you won't know if it was the cigarettes that caused your cancer. It might be something else. The only thing you know is that among smokers, lung cancer is statistically more prevalent. In the same way, no scientist will tell you for sure, that it was climate change that caused the recent devastating floods in Kenya 's Coastal Province , displacing 60,000 people. What we know is that a warmer atmosphere is able to take up more humidity, making torrential rains like those at the Coast more likely. Statistics are blurring the picture, making it more difficult to claim compensation for damages due to climate change, but they are not changing it fundamentally.
The crisis at the Coast teaches us another lesson: Climate change is bad for business. Road links are interrupted, a cement firm had to close down, and tea exports couldn't reach the port. All this is affecting Kenya 's growth and foreign exchange income. The recent Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, the most exhaustive investigation into the issue led by a former World Bank Chief Economist, came to the conclusion that the economic damages due to unmitigated climate change can reach effects on the global economy that are only comparable to the great depression of the 30s and the two world wars.
If there is injustice, two things must be done:
- The situation causing the injustice must be rectified. This means: the countries causing excessive greenhouse gas emissions must stop doing so, at the fastest pace possible.
- The damage done must be compensated, the victims must be indemnified. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) enshrines a good principle of environmental law: The polluter pays. But this principle has so far patently been neglected at the climate negotiations – it awaits implementation. What we have in place as so-called adaptation fund, a major issue of debate at the recent climate talks, is frankly ridiculous in terms of the amounts leveraged.
These were two central issues for Africa at the climate change talks. I can report that there is fairly widespread consciousness in Europe about the first: the need to bring down Greenhouse gas emissions – although there is still ferocious resistance of powerful lobbies against the measures that are necessary towards this end. But there is very little consciousness in Europe about its second duty: The necessity for compensation for climate change related damages, for the protection of the poor against the inevitable impacts of climate change. This is not yet a major issue in the press and in public debate.
Building emission poor economies in the North and in the South is equivalent to a revolution of how we use and produce energy. A great energy transition is before us. At the just ended climate conference, this transition was mainly negotiated as a burden. Most of the negotiations were framed around “burden sharing”. Maybe these negotiations should be framed anew, around sharing of opportunities arising from renewable energies and the much more efficient use of energy. Kenya has extensive resources of renewable energies, be it geothermal, biomass or wind. When developing these clean, renewable resources, you may find out that it is in fact a sound investment in Kenya 's development, and not a burden on it. It will lessen the need for imports, shielding the country against oil price shocks that are wreaking havoc in many African countries.
It is not Africa's duty to contribute to fighting the causes of climate change, as Africa has contributed very little to it so far. But it is Africa 's opportunity to join the great transition to a sustainable energy system as part of a smart development strategy. In a similar way, it is a matter of a sound development strategy to protect the remaining forests and to plant billions of new trees in Africa . Not because they soak up carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. This is for Africa a beneficial side effect. But because planting trees and protecting watersheds is simply the most sensible strategy to adapt to climate change and to shield the continent from the vagaries of a changing climate. Healthy ecosystems are much more resilient.
There are still a lot of scientific gaps of the exact direction that climate change will take over the coming decades in specific regions of Africa . In the face of uncertainty, diversity is key as a risk reducing strategy. Diverse forests are more likely to withstand climate change, whatever direction a changing climate may take. They are more capable to withstand new outbreaks of pests, as their distribution changes with a warmer climate.
In summary, with the small exception of South Africa , the African continent is hardly contributing to the causes of climate change. But it is likely to be the worst affected. Africa has therefore a keen interest that the climate change talks advance in creating a viable regime that is able to address both the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the challenges of adaptation. Africa 's leaders, be it from the spheres of government, of arts and music, of sports, business and civil society, they all have the right, and maybe the duty, to raise their voices on this.
But independently of the outcome of the climate talks, it is simply a matter of a smart development strategy to develop Africa's resources in clean energy, to use energy much more efficiently, and to conserve and expand Africa 's natural wealth in forests and biodiversity. It is a matter of self-interest, not a duty towards the rest of the world.
The writer coordinates the international work of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation on Environment and Sustainable Development issues. The article was presented as a paper at the conference on “Africa's Stake in the Climate Change Talks” held on the 14 th November 2006 in Nairobi .
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