African Leaders to seek finance for floods, famine Victims at climate summit

In anticipation of the Africa Summit in Nairobi, African leaders have underscored the summit’s objective: initiating discussions aimed at alleviating the suffering caused by hunger, famine, and floods in Africa.

Kenyan Environment Minister Soipan Tuya recently articulated this vision in Nairobi.

Tuya remarked, “The new narrative… should focus on Africa’s readiness to attract timely, equitable, and substantial capital to lead the world in addressing climate change.”

Thousands of delegates are expected to deliberate on solutions in preparation for a U.N. climate summit in New York next month and the COP28 U.N. summit in the United Arab Emirates in late November.

The organizers of the summit anticipate the conclusion of deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in Nairobi.

Market-based financing tools, including carbon credits that enable polluters to offset emissions by supporting activities such as tree-planting and renewable energy production, are prominent among the funding options.

Additionally, governments have shown interest in debt-for-nature swaps. Gabon recently completed Africa’s first such transaction by repurchasing $500 million of its international debt and issuing an eco-friendly amortizing bond of equal value. The aim is to generate savings for conservation efforts.

However, the summit’s approach to climate finance has faced criticism from civil society groups. Over 500 of them accused the organizers, in an open letter, of prioritizing Western interests at Africa’s expense.

The groups argued, “These approaches will empower wealthy nations and large corporations to continue polluting the world, greatly harming Africa.”

Amos Wemanya, a senior adviser at Power Shift Africa, one of the signatories, emphasized that financing should come from wealthier countries fulfilling their commitments to poorer ones, commitments that have so far only been partially met.

Regarding attracting investment, Kenya, which claims to account for a quarter of carbon credits traded in Africa, aims to serve as a model for Africa’s aspirations in this market.

The country has introduced legislation to attract investment and hosted an auction in June where Saudi Arabian companies purchased over 2.2 million tons of carbon credits.

One of the projects generating these credits is BURN Manufacturing in Kenya, which produces clean cooking stoves to replace heavily polluting wood and charcoal-based fires.

Income from carbon credits allows BURN to sell these stoves to impoverished Kenyans at a subsidized rate of $12 per unit, compared to the production cost of $40-50.

Looking ahead, the summit will feature a significant deal between the United Arab Emirates and the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI).

ACMI, launched at the COP27 summit in Egypt last year, aims to increase Africa’s carbon credit production from 16 million in 2020 to 300 million by 2030 and 1.5 billion by 2050.

In response to criticisms of carbon credits, Joseph Ng’ang’a, CEO of the summit’s secretariat, emphasized their importance in combating climate change but acknowledged that they are just one part of the solution.

African nations will continue to press for increased funding from wealthy nations and greater recognition of the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest tropical forest, as a significant carbon sink, according to summit organizers.