Put climate finance at the heart of COP28 summit

As the UN Climate Summit (COP28) draws closer, vulnerable countries such as Uganda, which have faced extreme effects of climate change should be prioritised for climate justice and finance.

During the COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, it was noted that the vulnerable, such as the poor and women, should be considered if compensation for climate disasters was ever to make sense.

The best way for developed countries to deliver climate justice is by extending finance for people in developing nations because they are facing the brunt of climate change like never before. Climate-vulnerable states, for example Uganda, also want their rich and high-emission counterparts to pay compensation for climate damage.

This is the unfinished business that the latter promised last year in Egypt. So far, it is clear that we are not on the right trajectory to achieve the global climate target commitment of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

The Emissions Gap Report 2022 finds that the world must cut emissions by 45 percent to avoid global catastrophe. The same report indicates that the world is not on track to reach the Paris Agreement goals and global temperatures can reach 2.8°C by the end of the century.

At COP27, countries also responded to the recommendations made by the Breakthrough Agenda Report published in 2022 with a package of 28 Priority Actions to decarbonise the power, road transport, steel, hydrogen, and agriculture sectors in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. But it should be noted that the temperatures have risen by 1.15 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times in the 19th Century due to human activities. Deforestation, wetland encroachment, land degradation and population pressures top the factors putting mankind on the brink of extinction.

For the past nine years, scientists have noted the warmest records across the globe, but the world’s 20 wealthiest countries are failing to do enough to stop the planet from overheating.The rising emissions of global-warming greenhouse gases have caused severe drought in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.  Other parts of Africa have been ravaged by floods. Climate change has caused food shortage in several regions of Africa and other parts of the world.

Scientific research further reveals that the annual per capita carbon footprint in sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 was at 0.1 tonnes, as opposed to up to 17 tonnes in Australia, Canada and the US. This record shows that every delegate meeting in Dubai in December for COP28 must put climate justice at the heart of every discussion.

Uganda and its neighbours are responsible for less than 0.12 percent of global emissions, yet millions of inhabitants are facing the catastrophic effects of climate change. It’s time to focus beyond adaptation, demand money from the big shots for the damage already caused. Otherwise the activism of saving mother earth will be a waste of time.

The highest emitters, including the US, must be at the forefront of developing finance mechanisms. In East Africa, Kenya’s President William Ruto’s tree restoration programme, which calls on Kenyans to plant 15 billion trees by 2032 is turning out to be a role model project that all of us must emulate.

Scientists and economists have also warned that the rising financial inequality in the world risks a climate catastrophe. Unless we build a world that is genuinely equitable and accelerate the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the next decade, extreme heat will kill us at a faster rate.

Hope can never be lost, the world can still stabilise global temperatures and approach an end to poverty by 2030 by reforming the international financial system, addressing gross inequality, empowering women, transforming the food system and transitioning to clean energy to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Mr Musani is an environment and climate change journalist