Ahead of COP29 in Azerbaijan: Greenpeace Africa urges African negotiators to prioritise climate finance.

The appeal was during a presser organised at the headquarters of the organistaion in Yaounde, recently. The media outing was also to make public a document Greenpeace Africa and Climate Justice Movements presented to the African Group of Negotiators, AGN, demanding a push for a needs-based climate finance framework.

Speaking at the presser, the Forest Campaign Project Lead at Greenpeace Africa, Sylvie Michele Ongbassomben, highlighted that securing funds to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change in the country such as the floods in the Far North Region is urgent. 

“Our collective objective now is thinking of ways we can increase international public finance and ways through which we can make the polluters pay and bear the costs of climate change adaptation schemes,” she stated. 

According to Ongbassomben, Greenpeace is looking to collaborate with African governments on the issues of climate finance, with the goal to negotiate better climate financing for African countries. 

According to Greenpeace Africa, financing is the lifeblood of the continents climate action as well as its survival. It is needed to curb the damaging consequences of climate disasters.

A young woman from Yagoua, Far North Region of Cameroon, Firida Debora, revealed that thousands of people have been affected by the current floods in that part of the country. 

She added that with the floods occurring at the start of the new school year in Cameroon, nearly 100 schools have remained closed hindering children, especially the girl child’s fundamental right to education.

“We have never had floods like this before. We were taken by surprise and we are facing famine and a severe humanitarian crisis. We understand its climate change but if climate action had more finance, we could have avoided this or better adapt to the consequences,” Firida regretted.

Issues with Africa’s climate finance

Climate finance expert, Hervé Makebel, pointed out that financing climate action in Africa still leaves much to be desired despite efforts. According to him, the main reason is because countries are still developing and lack resources, expertise, technologies and skills hence their negotiating power is weak.

“Africa has to rethink its strategy and join forces so they can send stronger delegations for negotiations. If all Africans can come together and send a united delegation for negotiations, their arguments can have weight and raise much needed finance for the continent,” Makebel underscored.

He added that most of the current climate finance schemes on the continent are loans which in the long run become difficult to manage. The expert stressed that financing for climate action should be more of goodwill donations and subventions not loans.

Key demands

As explained by Ongbassomben, the key demands presented to African negotiators among others include calls for the strict implementation of the polluter pays principle that obliges industries that cause pollution to pay for mitigation and adaptation schemes.

The organisation requested the negotiators to demand for public and debt-free climate financing as well as finance plans that genuinely addresses Africa’s climate challenges, and the need for wealthy countries to introduce a Climate Damages Tax, CDT, on fossil fuel extraction as a way to generate funds.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3245 of Monday September 30, 2024