African countries met in Ethiopia this week to reiterate that they will not be able to fight climate change without a fairer financial framework.
I have told you on several occasions through these articles how, in the face of the global climate crisis, Africa is experiencing a particularly stark paradox: despite contributing less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions and using only 6% of the world's energy, it is the region most severely impacted by climate change. This reality makes the African continent the epicentre of the devastating effects of global warming, with seventeen of the world's twenty most vulnerable countries located on its territory.
The impacts are already profound and widespread. The continent is experiencing rising temperatures, recurrent droughts, extreme flooding and erratic rainfall patterns that disrupt agriculture - the mainstay of many African economies - threatening food security and rural livelihoods.
Water scarcity is worsening, endangering the health of people, crops and livestock and increasing conflict over resources. Climate impacts displaced more people last year than war, further destabilising fragile regions and driving migration.
It has clear consequences, too, for health. More than half of public health emergencies in Africa between 2001 and 2021 were weather-related, driving the spread of water- and vector-borne diseases such as cholera, dengue fever and malaria. Extreme events such as Cyclone Freddy in 2023, the longest-lasting tropical storm on record, killed hundreds of people in Malawi and exacerbated a cholera outbreak, contributing to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Just yesterday we read in the African news dossier that we compile every morning at Casa África that Save the Children has just warned that child malnutrition in Madagascar will increase by 54% in the coming months due to prolonged droughts and cyclone-induced flooding.
In previous articles I have spoken a lot about climate change and adverse meteorological phenomena, and the urgent need for Africa to have early warning systems on a par with those in, for example, Europe or North America. From the Canary Islands, a geographically African territory, this should concern and occupy us much more.
Because projections indicate that Africa will face higher increases in mortality rates due to climate change than other parts of the world, highlighting its exceptional vulnerability, and it is clear that this asymmetry in contribution and impact sends a clear message: combating the climate crisis in Africa is fundamentally a matter of justice and equity.
And that is precisely the idea that African countries have been repeating for years, that there will be no climate justice without financial justice. This week they have done it again in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the African Union has held the Second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2), an event designed for African nations to define their climate agenda and to build a united front for the World Climate Conference (COP30), to be held in Brazil from 10 to 21 November this year.
The meeting was attended by more than 25,000 delegates, including heads of state and government, ministers, representatives of civil society, development partners, the private sector, local communities and indigenous peoples, farmers, youth and academics. The delegations present agreed on a final declaration to move towards their vision of a "prosperous, resilient and green continent" based on three main pillars: accelerating the development of renewable energy, building a coalition of African producers of critical minerals to ensure fair value in global supply chains, and protecting natural heritage through partnerships for reforestation and restoration.
African countries have committed to mobilise $50 billion annually in what they call 'catalytic finance' to promote up to a thousand African-specific climate solutions that accelerate innovation: 'African solutions' to address climate challenges in energy, agriculture, water, transport and resilience by 2030.
However, international media coverage has been scarce, overshadowed by conflicts such as Gaza, Ukraine or political polarisation in the US.
From the messages of this summit, I would like to highlight the clear diagnosis that the Africans put on the table: the financing of so-called climate adaptation (that is, to better prepare countries and their infrastructure to reduce the impacts of climate change) is "an obligation for developed countries, not an act of charity". And that financial injustice is fought in the form of aid, not high-interest loans that worsen Africa's already huge external debt burden.
This is something I have been reading for years to the economist Carlos Lopes, an accredited professor of Guinea-Bissau and a good friend of Casa África (with whom we have published two books and a third is in process) and who, by the way, has been appointed the spokesperson for African countries at the next COP in November in Brazil. Lopes denounces that Africa suffers from an endemic debt crisis, and that this did not arise from a lack of capacity or bad governance, but from chronic under-financing that has forced African nations to take on loans with exorbitant interest rates, imposed by private creditors and aggravated by biased credit ratings.
Thus, Africa's climate ambitions are constantly hampered by inadequate resources of all kinds, starting with finance. At present, the continent receives only 3% of global climate finance, and while recent international meetings established that at least $70 billion per year is needed for adaptation, only $15 billion, or 21% of its needs, was provided in 2023.
African countries insist that without urgent action to address this financing gap, the future costs of climate impacts will skyrocket, wiping out a fifth of GDP by 2050. For their representatives, raising their voices and coming to the COP in Brazil with a united message of their own is perhaps the big message of this summit. The fight against climate change, they concluded, "is the last great test of multilateralism".
From our side, Europe's participation in the Summit has shown a certain willingness and interest in contributing something that will really make progress. The European Commission's Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, until recently Minister Teresa Ribera, presented the Continental Energy Programme in Africa. With European funding, it aims to accelerate the implementation of the African Single Electricity Market (AfSEM) and the Continental Power Systems Master Plan (CMP), which are strategic pillars of the African Union's Agenda 2063. The CEPA is part of the Africa-EU Green Energy Initiative (AEGEI), a key part of the Africa-Europe Investment Package of the great European aid programme for developing countries, the Global Gateway, which mobilises 150 billion euros and which we have also talked about on other occasions, as well as being the subject of a Seminar at Casa África.
It sounds all very well, but it would be desirable for Europe to accompany these commitments with a critical review of its own energy policies, since the EU has never been able to articulate a common energy market. It would help to avoid contradictions between discourse and practice.
Climate justice, let us remember, is a utopia as long as there are up to 600 million people on the continent without access to electricity, as is the case now. Let us hope that we can indeed be useful in this.