Addis Ababa, August 18, 2023 (FBC) – United Arab Emirates (UAE) Industry and Advanced Technology and COP 28 President-Designate, Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber emphasized today the urgent need to increase climate finance to African countries to allow them to seize the opportunity of a zero-carbon, climate resilient future.
In his speech to the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in Addis Ababa, Sultan Al Jaber said “both the science and common sense are telling us that our collective response to climate change is nowhere near good enough.”
The president designate emphasized Africa’s position as one of the hardest hit regions by climate-related extreme weather events, from the Horn of Africa to Lake Chad and beyond.
He noted that the world has seen too many lives and livelihoods devastated from Pakistan to Hawaii. Yet, Africa has been facing extreme climate conditions with greater impacts for longer than most.
“Here in the Horn of Africa, rains have not fallen for over four seasons, with 23 million people now facing severe hunger across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Lake Chad, once the lifeblood for millions of people in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, has shrunk to one tenth of its size. And continuous flooding has ruined crops and spread vector borne diseases across Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zambia and Rwanda.”
In recognizing African governments’ climate initiatives, Al Jaber highlighted the efforts of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) host, Ethiopia.
“Ethiopia is just one country that is leading the way with its Green Legacy Initiative (GLI). Since 2019 the GLI has planted over 25 billion seedlings, enhanced sustainable agriculture, strengthened food security, exported healthy food to foreign markets and created almost 1 million new green jobs along the way.”
However, Al Jaber noted that the chronic lack of available, accessible and affordable climate finance is a major obstacle standing in the way of further progress on climate action.
“Currently, barely one tenth of global climate finance finds its way to Africa. According to the African Development Bank, almost 250 billion dollars annually is needed to meet Africa’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) commitments through 2030,” he elaborated.
Yet, “this continent of 54 countries that contributes less than 5 percent of global emissions, receives less than 30 billion USD a year. And private finance flows to Africa are a fraction of what is disbursed to the rest of the world. These are the realities. They need to be fixed. And they need to be fixed now.”
According to Al Jaber, the AMCEN summit underway in Addis Ababa is important as it could be used to mobilize African leaders ahead of COP28 and prepare the ground for strong outcomes on finance, adaptation, and loss and damage, per ENA.