By Dan Kaburu
As the curtain falls on the 10th Special Session of the Africa Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in Abidjan, one thing remains constant: African people are facing the worst impacts of climate change. This calls for urgent and bold actions to avert the catastrophe that climate change has become. It is time to hit the climate finance button.
Our communities need support in the form of grant-based climate finance that reflect the needs for building resilience to climate impacts and addressing the climate induced losses and damages.
The AMCEN decision on climate change sets in motion our engagement in the upcoming crucial COP in Baku on climate finance. African governments, negotiators, civil society and media must lead the charge in demanding for ambitious goal on climate finance that is debt free, public and adequate to meet the needs of communities on the front line of the crisis. However, carbon offsets should not be considered as climate finance. The increased reliance on carbon markets as a resource for climate finance needs to be critically reevaluated. Historical polluters have been advancing the agenda of carbon offsets as a potential solution to the climate crisis.
In many African countries such as Kenya, the arrival of carbon projects has precipitated multiple social upheavals. The ongoing acquisition of thousands of hectares of land to establish these projects, for instance, has led to the forceful removal, eviction and displacement of communities from their ancestral land.
COP 29 presents Africa with an opportunity to advocate for a new climate finance goal that responds to the realities of our people and the need to protect our ecosystems and planet.
