Thread by @althecat

This is a very good, short wrap up from @firstpost’s Vantage with @palkisu on the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, touching on the core issues of disagreement between the global south and the developed nations on #ClimateTransition #ClimateEquity in recent global climate negotiations in Glasgow #COP26, Egypt #COP27, and which are set to come up again soon in Dubai at #COP28.

The disputes are about implementation of provisions in the Paris Climate Agreement which Western Nations appear to be unwilling or unable to honour.

The outcomes from the summit at this point appear to be poised to see an expansion of fossil fuel exploitation in Africa which whilst arguably equitable in theory, is both terrible for the climate and which history suggests will primarily benefit western nations and African kleptocrats rather than the 1.4 billion strong peoples of Africa.

Notably the summit takes place amid a geopolitical crisis in west Africa accompanied by a financial crisis in Africa’s largest economy Nigeria which has had its foreign reserves looted by corrupt officials and oligarchs. In the wider West African region there is now a geopolitical crisis with competition between France, Russia and the US over exploitation of mineral & energy resources.

At the same time a spate of coups which began in Guinea and now includes Burkina Faso, Mali, and most recently Niger and Gabon. Reporting on these coups suggests that the post-colonial, colonisation issues on the continent remain seriously problematic.

The Paris Global Financial Summit in June which preceded the Africa Climate Summit included what “appeared to be an agreement” on a reform to the post WWII Bretton Woods global financial order which is yet to be implemented.

The decision by African leaders to pursue fossil fuel extraction as a pathway to development is opposed by many national parties to the Paris Climate Agreement and Ny civil society and activist groups, notably coming together under the @fossiltreaty which has growing momentum.

Unfortunately beyond a series of seemingly noble statements of intent around climate finance, loss & damages and much needed development (education & health) and climate mitigation (green energy) adaptation (infrastructure) and resilience (future proofing of infrastructure) actual funding which is needed in the trillions is not yet flowing.

Western nations have been making noises about funding for Africa for several years, but the European commitments announced in Feb 2022 with #GlobalGateway and US commitments to build green technology supply chains in Africa (DRC and Zambia) in August 2022 are yet to produce any tangible results.

Two African Nations have so far benefitted from so called Jet-p G20 partnerships, South Africa and Senegal to help reduce fossil fuel emissions but the first of these announced in Glasgow for 8 billion USD (2021) has proven very difficult to realise its ambition for technical and labour reasons.

The second in Senegal announced in Paris is tied to a gas resource exploitation agreement with France’s Total Energies which seems to be more about securing European energy supplies than Senegal. It’s intention is to replace heave fuel oil electricity generation with gas fired solutions.

To be fair these are experiments of a kind, albeit at large scale. But neither is expected to have any significant real impact on emissions.

Notwithstanding all the commentary above

The Nairobi #AfricaClimateSummit is nevertheless another step in the right direction towards the light of Equity and the high level western attendees and their somewhat noble statements of intentions are a small step in the right direction.

And they set up a very challenging and ambitious negotiating agenda for #cop28 in Dubai.

@fossiltreaty /ends @threadreaderapp unroll