COP27: Misleading Africa into the debt trap

Author: Nicholas Sengoba. PHOTO/NMG

What you need to know:

  • In places like Africa, the droughts are more intense and longer so people are having trouble farming and feeding themselves

Once again nations of the world have come together to discuss what is currently the greatest challenge to humanity.
The 27th United Nations Climate Change conference or COP27 (from November 6 to 18) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt is underway.
The world has abused the environment so badly that it has messed up the climate. Weather patterns are extreme and unpredictable. The world has grown warmer or hotter. In some instances it has become colder and wetter. You have heavy rains, destructive floods, cyclones.

In places like Africa, the droughts are more intense and longer so people are having trouble farming and feeding themselves. A lot of plant and animal life is under threat, which has caused disruptions in the ecosystem and food chains. Diseases and pestilences are on the rise as a result. 
Like it happens when disaster strikes, it is the poor and the weak who bear the brunt. They feel the most adverse of the effects.
The developed countries are responsible for most of the mess. The depletion of the ozone layer as a result of the carbon emissions from the industrialisation and burning of fossil fuels is their hand in the cookie jar.

A UN report estimates that the developed world will need about $2 trillion in investments to mitigate and ameliorate the status quo by 2030. The bill has been given to the West.
The West is talking alright but there is hardly any action and it is understandable. Cutting back on emissions is an expense. In monetary terms it means a change in technology or cutting down industrial production and overall consumption.
This means foregoing economic growth, which, going by their intransigence, they are not willing to do. We have had 27 years of promises to do all sorts of things to reverse climate change and the situation is only getting worse.
The concern should now be with the emerging economies in the global South, most of which are found in Africa.

Most African countries are agrarian. They practice agriculture, most of which depends on nature unlike in the West. Yet the solution to climate change has been left in the hands of the perpetrators, the West.
At most of the COP meetings there is an agreement that humanity is at risk. Then a division emerges with regard to who is to blame, which position is now occupied by the West.
The ‘innocent party,’ in the global South then demands that they are compensated by the West to finance the loss they incur due to climate change.
Nothing concrete happens and the cycle is repeated in the next COP 12 months later.
The global South is behaving like it has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. I am afraid to say that the interaction between the West and Africa for the last 200 years, for all intents and purposes, has been one of exploitation by the former.

Whatever ulterior motives, clothed in commerce, religion, civilisation, you name it, the eyes of the West have always been on the resources of the African continent. All the aid or philanthropy has come with the ultimate aim of subjugating the recipient at some point.
When the naked face of colonialism was unmasked, there was a tactical withdrawal, which gave way to self-rule and independence. The colonialist then came back with high interest ‘economic aid.’ The independent states soon realised that they were still dependent on external forces for their existence.

Even when they produced and extracted the vast mineral wealth, they had minimal control. This is because the global economy is structured in such a way that markets and value addition is firmly in the hands of the West.
Climate change is making it even trickier. The more extreme the climatic and weather conditions, the more desperate African countries become.
The people will not have enough to eat. They will not afford renewable energy like hydroelectricity so they have to depend more on cheaper solid fuel biomass or charcoal. Poor people are not able to afford land so they invade ‘free’ public land like wetlands and forests. That will make matters worse as the more plant cover is depleted the more adverse the environment becomes.
Callous and farfetched as it sounds, it is safe to argue that for the developed world the disaster caused by climate change offers a blessing in disguise.

It is something that will quicken the move to realise the dream of having a solid stranglehold on the vast natural resources of the African continent.
Two major factors have made it an urgent priority. The emergence of China as an industrial powerhouse that is hungry for cheap raw materials, many readily available in Africa means that in future completion for these resources is going to be steep. Secondly the current global crisis caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine has left Europe in a very precarious energy situation. There is going to be a run on especially fossil fuels produced in Africa to cover the gap caused by the Russian embargo. The sights of the West are set on African oil and gas which going by history and habit the West would strive to acquire at the cheapest cost possible.

So if things in Africa go south because of the adverse effects of climate change; with people starving, a rise in civil strife, displacement and damage of property, the West is likely to be a big winner.
They will come in gladly with more economic aid given at very high interest rates in exchange for cheap energy.
Viewed in that light, the rather casual manner and attitude towards making amends and keeping promises on correcting the damage to the environment by the West is comprehensible.
It provides a different route to achieve the goal that they have desired for more than two centuries.

If Africa is fooled into waiting for the West to act as the legendary mother goose that provides for the livelihood of its young ones, they will wake up and find everything gone.
When it comes to Africa, the West has a lot to prove that it comes with clean hands. Africa must take the bull by the horns and find a way around the huge task of climate change. The West will find us if at all they are coming along, which I doubt they are doing.