West's 'Climate Injustice' May Cause 'Catastrophe' in Africa, Expert Warns

Western states' current climate change funding approach to African countries is characterized by several short- and long-term problems – which might bring destructive implications for the continent, explains Professor Chukwumerije Okereke, director of the Center for Climate Change and Development at Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Nigeria, in an interview with Sputnik.

The emphasis on climate loans "can lead to even more debt for African countries, and it is going to be a catastrophe if Africans have to encumber themselves with more debt in order to address the issue of climate change, which they have not caused," Okereke states. He went on to say that loans account for more than 70% of climate financing, according to international non-governmental organization Oxfam. "This is what we call global warming climate injustice."

According to the UN, despite contributing two or three percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, Africa is among the regions that most suffers from the climate change fallout.

Funding of efforts to fight climate change and its destructive impact on Africa was among key topics discussed at the fifth United Nations Conference of Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Doha. Speaking at the opening of the second part of the сonference on March 9, top African politicians pointed out that their countries are experiencing hunger, human rights violations, armed conflicts, environmental deterioration and natural disasters, as well as economic constraints associated with global turbulence and debt burdens. They stressed that these issues can't be solved in isolation and should be addressed jointly.

The African leaders reiterated their calls to relieve Africa's debt and increase investments in the continent in order to counter climate change and address other issues. At the same time, they expressed disappointment over the amount of support the international community has provided so far, saying that much-needed assistance is yet to be delivered, while many countries instead are subject to political interference.

According to Okereke, along with the emphasis on loans, another problem of the West's funding approach is that the money in most cases "goes to mitigation [of climate change], whereas adaptation is neglected." The expert argues that western countries believe that such a kind of funding is the easiest way to make decisions on carbon, adding that "essentially, the approach of funding focuses more on carbon reduction than sustainable development."

Another short-term problem in the western funding approach is that the money "doesn't always go to the countries that need it most", Okereke says, arguing that the funds end up with "countries where they feel the politics are more favorable and where they will have a return on their investment."

Okereke underlines that the least developed countries lack funding needed to advance their economic goals in an environmentally sustainable manner. He stresses that sustainable development in the African continent requires building critical infrastructure, including roads, seaports, massive irrigation systems wind farms, hydroelectric power – along with other critical projects that meet the needs of sustainable development without compromising the global climate.

"African countries prepared their national adaptation plans. And the research I did in 2015 showed that only about 12% of the adaptation action identified by African countries received funding from western nations," the economist says. "Western countries have not been able to provide the promised funding."

At the 2009 UN Convention on Climate Change, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilizing US $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries. In autumn 2022, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths asked for more openness in climate financing, as he said he had no idea what had happened to the promised $100 billion a year.

According to the Nigerian expert, one of the main reasons for the lack of funding, which he personally does not find "very convincing", is that "developed countries have been complaining that they also have massive investments to make" in their own countries, making them unable to "fund low-carbon development in African countries."

"They were saying that they also have a lot of their own needs to meet, which is fair. But when COVID-19 broke out in 2019, 2020, developed countries quickly mobilized over $10 trillion in order to stimulate their economies," Okereke argues. "The lesson here is that when there is a will there's a way, if rich countries really wanted to do it, they would be able to find the money."

The scholar also cites "the rise of far-right parties" in many European countries, as well as in the United States, as one of the possible factors behind the developed nations' failure to keep their promises to poorer countries.

He further explains that the aforementioned factor resulted in a "situation where the population was basically against rich countries giving money to Africa to fund their low-carbon development." Such sentiment, he believes, has led to a "shift in the public opinion against aid-based funding."

"One great example is the United Kingdom that originally wrote into law that 0.7% of the GDP will be given to official development assistance. But when Cameron lost [the] elections and was replaced eventually by Boris Johnson, he cut this commitment to ODA. And that led to a massive decommissioning of even many ongoing projects in Africa," Okereke says.

The Alex-Ekwueme Federal University professor assumes that Washington's withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change during the administration of the Republican President Donald Trump also had its impact on destabilizing development projects in the African continent, including the construction of some oil pipelines.

He also notes that some donors cite corruption and poor project development in Africa as some of the reasons behind this lack of funding, and "to some extent that is valid." Political instability is also one of the key factors listed by the expert.

"Many rich countries want to give money to places where they feel that projects can be developed without too much disruption," Okereke believes.

In 2022, developed countries agreed to establish the so called "loss and damage" fund at the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in order to help the poorer and less industrialized nations recover from climate change's impact.

As for the fund, Okereke says that it is still uncertain whether the initiative is going to be any different from the previous promises of the West. He points out that parties are still negotiating the institution, funding mechanisms, and other related issues, adding that he expects the funding to be "lower than in previous cases" if western countries would decide "who gets the money", along with the "the threshold, the hoops, the conditionalities" that would be met for poorer states to receive the funding.

"But remember that the money has not been mobilized first, and it has not been disbursed. So it's difficult to really say whether these hopes will eventuate," the experts adds.