Africa must not sign a suicide pact at Doha

Doha, Qatar, 28-11-2012: African civil society representatives attending the 18th Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Doha, Qatar, coalescing under the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance set out their concerns and demands at the conference on Tuesday setting out some key demands they expect to come from the meeting.

This is amidst signs of business as usual in the negotiations. The views and demands of African Civil Society, coming together under the auspices of PACJA were made clear at two press conferences organized by PACJA.

This was unprecedented and only a demonstration of the extent to which the Alliance is not only frustrated at the character and pace of negotiations but also its resolve to push for the agenda of the many vulnerable citizens of the countries of the continent who stand to suffer the most from the negative impacts of climate change.

The message highlighted current flaws in the multilateral system of negotiation whose transparency is inadequate, allows for the pursuit of lase solutions such as through carbon markets and ignores the historical obligation to compensate those least responsible yet hardest hit by impacts of an increasingly warming Mother Earth.

In addition, the Alliance called for serious attention to the disproportionate nature of the impacts of climate change on men and women in low income countries and that this should be reflected in decisions made at Doha, particularly in the means for adaptation.

At a press conference, the African CSOs push that developed countries should acknowledge that they have used their own fair share of earth atmospheric space and must take measures to reduce domestic emissions.

They demanded that the developed countries should finance and transfer technology to enable Africa to follow a less polluted path without compromising development.

They equally demanded that compensation for the adverse effects of the historical and current per-capita emission that burden Africans with the rising climate-related adaptation costs and damages.

Lost opportunities should be paid for and technology transfer should be at no cost.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCC, came into force in 1994 and the Conference of Parties, COP, to the UNFCC has been meeting annually to assess progress in dealing with climate change.

The COP (supreme body of the convention and associations of countries that are party to the convention) serves as Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, CMP, whose annual meeting incidentally coincides.

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 and legally binds developed countries to emission reduction target.

But, the developed countries are putting intellectual property rights ahead of technology transfer.

The CSOs from this position want to see a safe Africa with a low carbon concentration in the atmosphere and that global warming returns to below 1 degree Celsius above per-industrial levels.

Africa opposes the global goal of less than 2 degrees for the fact that this would be commensurate to incineration and limiting modern development.

Recognizing the risk posed by climate change to food security and the livelihood of our farmers and rural poor communities, Africa wants to see atmospheric concentration stabilize within a given time to safeguard food production.

In this vein, Africa demands that the West protect and compensate the poor by upholding the polluters must pay principle while providing achievable solutions.

They wish that the outcome of Doha respect Africa’s interests.

These among many others is born out of the argument that Africa bear the burden of climate change though responsible for only 4 percent of the carbon emissions while the developed world is responsible for about 70 percent of carbon emissions.

However, CSOs point that the scientific community has led Africa to focus on the symptoms rather than the causes.

The rich countries propose goals that instead risk suffering for Africa while offering insufficient reduction and inadequate funding.

The fear is that instead of implementing the Koyto protocol, the only legal binding instrument between the developed countries (that have caused the problem) and the developing countries (who never caused the problem), developed countries are avoiding the protocol.

The US for example signed, never ratified and unsigned the protocol thus pushing some countries to leave the protocol as it would be favourable for them and their economy. This is not fair for African countries, PACJA Chair argued.

African countries are calling for a change in the production and consumption system that treats the earth as a laboratory. As system is need where there is respect for mother earth, he said.

For more information contact:

Mr Mithika Mwenda
Coordinator,
PACJA
[email protected]