The Position of Pan African Climate
Justice Alliance (PACJA), a coalition of African Civil Society Organizations at
the 18th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th Session of the Conference of
Parties serving as the meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 8).
We converge in Doha at a time when
evidence of climate change across our continent, in rural settlements and pastoral
areas, in towns, on coastlines and deep in the heart of Africa is no longer a
matter of speculation but a reality people are battling. Our rivers run dry.
Our crops turn to dust. Seasons shift and change. The effects of climate change
are reflected in the expectant eyes of hungry children, and in the lengthening
footsteps of women carrying water.
Across Africa, a growing
congregation of people suffers starvation and disease while others, after
freeing themselves from the grip of grinding poverty, are shackled again by an
increasingly hostile climate. It is a cruel irony that a people who have lived
for so long in harmony with Mother Earth, imprinting the lightest of
footprints, now suffer a crisis they did not cause.
We bear the burden of climate
change; but they are not of our making. For over two centuries the
industrialized world became wealthy by polluting the atmosphere. Wealthy
countries and corporations plundered resources from every region of the world.
On mountains of coal and oil they built cities of plenty. In the great buildings
they constructed while causing the climate crisis they now shelter from its
adverse effects. Those left outside are forced to find another path to
prosperity, while the sun beats down, or a perfect storm – not of their making
– gathers on the horizon.
The result is a spiraling set of
crises now afflicting our world among which is climate change. Responsibility
for the causes and consequences of climate change lies with this system. More
than 70% of carbon dioxide from industrial sources was emitted by the 20% of
people living in developed countries. Africa, home to around a billion people,
contributed less than 4%.
Rather than addressing their
historical responsibilities, these countries and corporations, along with a
significant segment of the scientific community, have led us to focus on the
symptoms of climate crisis and ignore its causes. We have focused on the fever
while disregarding the disease: a system that has enabled a minority of the
Earth’s people to appropriate the vast majority of its natural resources and
material wealth, and that is organized around a logic of competition and
commodification in pursuit of limitless growth on a finite planet.
The industrialized countries now seek
to entrench and extend the current system of social and economic organization,
and propose to allow temperatures to rise by up to 2 degrees globally, and to
much higher levels in Africa, threatening the production of food for our
families, the stability of our ecosystems and the viability of our jobs and
livelihoods. And worse, in their actions and paltry commitments they in effect
allow a catastrophic global warming of 3°C, 4°C, 5°C or even higher.
They seek to continue their
excessive emissions, threatening our development and consuming an unfair share
of the Earth’s atmospheric space. Their current proposals would enable the 20%
of people living in developed countries to consume over 60% of the Earth’s
carbon budget (historically to 2050) while the 80% who are poor would be
consigned to live within the remaining 40%. This looting of common property,
the atmospheric space by a handful people of wealthiest nations, while millions
are starving does really need to be condemned. Through a global carbon market, they
seek to enable their wealthiest investment firms and most polluting
corporations to commodify the carbon in our soils, forests and other resources
to create “carbon credits” that entitle them to increase their pollution,
evading their responsibilities to cut their own emissions and provide public
funds to developing countries.
To achieve their objectives,
developed countries are seeking to end rather than implement the Kyoto
Protocol, in violation of international law. They seek to dismantle the current
UN climate regime and replace it with a weaker system of voluntary pledges. The
so-called Copenhagen Accord, a document resulting from an un-transparent and
undemocratic process in Copenhagen, and which the UN Climate Convention’s
Secretariat confirmed does “not have any legal standing in the UNFCCC process
even if some Parties decide to associate themselves with it”, has through
questionable means in Cancun and Durban been increasingly incorporated into the
formal processes.
The outcomes of the Durban
negotiations threatens to leave a void for the crucial next decade with no
binding, stringent commitments for emissions reductions by the rich countries,
nor necessary financing and technology commitments. Furthermore, an open-ended
mandate to negotiate a new instrument – the Durban platform
– threatens to cement an unambitious pledge and review framework with no
or little differentiation between developed and developing countries This would
entrench the world on yet another decade of inaction, post-2020, which would
guarantee disaster, not only for Africa but the whole world. Any new regime
must be firmly rooted in equity and utterly ambitious in line with what science
demands.
The rich countries, however, propose
global goals that risk untold suffering in Africa, while offering insufficient
emission reductions, and inadequate funding. Expectations are downgraded.
Processes are delayed. Pressure is mounting on developing countries. Those who
suffer the injustice of climate change are encouraged to be “constructive”,
while those who caused it “divide and rule” through political pressure and the
misuse of financial resources.
We, the people and organizations of
Africa, believe that such an approach threatens not only Africa but all of
humanity. We call for a fairer and more science-based solution to climate
change that addresses the structural causes of climate change, not merely its
symptoms; that promotes greater harmony among people and with nature; and that
ensures respect for the human rights of all people and the rights of Mother
Earth. We, as Africans, stand ready to play our part. But cooperation must be
based on justice. Our future cannot be a subject of bargaining and our
development cannot be sacrificed.
The outcomes to be agreed at the Doha
climate negotiations must ensure that developed countries address their
historical responsibilities and debts, while implementing the Kyoto Protocol
(through the Kyoto Protocol track) and the Climate Convention (through the Bali
Action Plan). As the basis of this approach, we call on developed countries to
address their historical responsibilities and honor their climate debts to
developing countries:
·
We
call on developed countries to acknowledge that they have already used more
than a fair and sustainable share of the Earth’s atmospheric space. They must
repay their debt through deep domestic emission reductions and by transferring
the technology and finance required to enable us to follow a less polluting
pathway, without compromising our development (an emissions debt).
·
We
call on developed countries to compensate us for the adverse effects of their
excessive historical and current per-capita emissions, which are burdening us
with rising climate-related costs and damages (an adaptation debt).
To advance the interests of Africa the
outcome of the climate negotiations in Doha must at a minimum address the
following demands:
1.
Keep
Africa safe. We
recognize the
need to minimize further loss and damage to Africa, and call for the blanket of
greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to be returned to well below 300ppm CO2eq and
warming to be limited to well below 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial
levels, with the objective of returning to pre-industrial levels in the longer
term. Even warming of this level globally risks warming of more than 1.5
degrees Celsius in Africa, dangerous interference with our climate, and loss
and damage requiring compensation. We oppose a goal of “less than 2 degrees
Celsius” as condemning Africa to incineration and to no modern development.
2.
Secure
food Security. We
recognize the grave risk posed by climate change to our food security, and to
the lives and livelihoods of our farmers and rural poor communities, and call
for atmospheric concentrations to be stabilized in a time frame that safeguards
food production, allows our agricultural and ecological systems to adapt
naturally, and safeguards our jobs and economic development.
3.
Share
the atmosphere fairly.
We emphasize our right to achieve sustainable development making use of a fair
share of the Earth’s global commons and resources, and call for the carbon
budget required to return to well below 300ppm CO2eq to be shared
fairly with Africa taking into account the accumulative historical use of these
resources by developed countries and the finance and technology transfers made
available to developing countries.
4.
Rich
countries to cut excessive consumption and pollution. We recognize that current
atmospheric concentrations are principally the result of historical emissions
of greenhouse gases, the largest share of which originated in developed country
Parties, and we call on developed countries honor their commitments under the
Kyoto Protocol and curb the growth of their emission debt by reducing their
emissions by more than 50% by 2017 and by more than 100% well before 2050,
against a base year of 1990 levels. We call on the United States to ratify the
Kyoto Protocol or adopt comparable commitments under the Climate Convention. We
oppose any effort by developed countries to appropriate Africa’s fair share of
atmospheric space or to create carbon markets to buy a further share.
5.
Protect
and compensate affected communities. Developed countries’ historical emissions are driving
current and committed warming and its adverse effects on Africa. The impacts
and costs of climate change have been grossly underestimated. Damage from
disasters, droughts and other adverse effects in Africa are rising rapidly. To
limit and repay their adaptation debts, developed countries must compensate
Africa for the full costs of: 1) avoiding harms (where possible); 2) actual
harm and damage; and 3) lost opportunities for our development. We oppose any
effort to establish adaptation as an obligation not a right, or to use
adaptation as a means to divide or differentiate between developing countries.
6.
Polluter
not poor pays.
Developed countries have prospered through “cheap carbon” growth while
externalizing their costs to the atmosphere and to developing countries. The
costs are now born by Africa, as we mitigate and adapt to a crisis we played
little role in causing. To avert a climate catastrophe and enable mitigation,
adaptation and technology transfer to developing countries, developed countries
must make available financing of more than 1.5% of their
GDP. We oppose efforts to shift the burden of financing away from developed
countries and towards developing countries or the market. We oppose the
creation of “unsupported” or “market” NAMAs (actions) as inconsistent with the
Convention.
7.
Transfer
the tools to adapt and develop. Curbing global emissions within a decade requires
technology transfers on a scale never before considered. We need a Marshall
Plan for Africa and for the Earth. Developed countries must remove intellectual
property rights, pay “full incremental
costs” of technology transfer to protect developing countries and contribute
for peaking and declining of global emissions. As stated in the
Convention, the extent of developing countries’ implementation depends on
developed countries’ implementation of financing and technology. We oppose
efforts to sell rather than transfer technologies, or to strengthen rather than
relax Intellectual property rights.
8.
Fair
not false solutions.
We oppose the use of false and unfair measures by developed countries. They
must not shift burdens to developing countries, or seek to “divide and rule”
the countries of the South, or to penalize developing countries through trade
or other measures. We oppose the
creation of global carbon markets or sectoral trading mechanisms, by which the
developed countries will take more of Africa’s rightful share of atmospheric
space.
9.
Systems
change not climate change. Recognizing the structural causes of the present crisis, and that the
climate crisis will not be solved with the same level of thinking that created
it, we call for a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human
beings. We believe that to balance
with nature, there must first be equity among human beings. We call for
fundamental change to the current system of social and economic organization
and call for a new order building on the wisdom of our civilizations to live
well and to live in harmony with Mother Earth.
10.
Defend
democracy. We affirm
that the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) constitutes the fundamental
legal framework on climate change and call for the establishment of effective
and accountable institutions under the Conference of Parties. We oppose the
removal of decision-making away from our elected representatives into
unaccountable institutions at the regional or international level. And we oppose
efforts to extend the role of the World Bank, Global Environment Facility or
other donor-driven institutions. We call for a response to the climate crisis
that is of the people, by the people and for the people.
The response to the climate crisis
must advance Africa’s interests. Africa must sign no suicide pact in Doha. Our
longer-term interests must under no circumstances be sacrificed to short-term
financing or to “beggar thy neighbor” outcomes that pursue the interests of
some developing countries at the expense of others.
We call on Governments to end
years of delay and meet their moral, historical and legal obligations, and urge all movements, peoples
organizations, civil society groups and all concerned citizens to come together
in a global campaign on climate justice. We will stand in solidarity with the
leaders of any nation who seek a solution to climate change that is founded on
justice, builds on the best available science, and ensures the well-being of
Africans and other peoples and countries.
For further enquiries please contact:
The Coordinator
PACJA Continental Secretariat
Tel: +254 020875808, +974433445723
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