By Yemi Olakitan
Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the president-elect of the COP28 summit has said that the globe is falling behind in its efforts to combat climate change.
Al Jaber made this statement at the same time that African leaders demanded modifications to the allegedly unfair international climate finance system.
Three days before the UN releases its first “global stocktake,” Al Jaber, who will preside over the summit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late November, gave a sombre assessment.
The global stocktake evaluates how well the world’s countries are doing in combating climate change.
“We are not delivering the results that we need in the time that we need them,” said Jaber, who also serves as the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, addressing attendees at the first Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
The summit’s main goal, which kicked off on Monday, is to raise money for Africa’s response to climate change.
According to academics, despite experiencing some of the worst effects of climate change, Africa only receives approximately 12% of the funding required to cope.
On Monday, investments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in initiatives for sustainable development were made public.
Jaber also revealed on Tuesday that the UAE would invest $4.5 billion to create 15 GW of clean energy in Africa by 2030.
Africa now has installed renewable energy capacity of roughly 60 GW.
A change in the global climate financing architecture is necessary to meet the continent’s financing demands, according to African leaders, especially given the continent’s large government debt loads.
African states specifically want to press for the expansion of special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund, which could release $500 billion in climate money and be leveraged up to five times, at the COP28.
The most in needy nations should be granted special drawing privileges, according to Kenyan President William Ruto, who claimed that this has not always been the case.
He demanded that multilateral financial institutions increase concessional financing and have a “conversation” about implementing a carbon tax in order to finance development, lamenting the fact that African countries pay five times as much interest as other borrowers.
“Proposing a fair international financial architecture is not unfair,” added Ruto.
Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank, advocated for the natural resources of the continent, particularly its carbon-sequestering forests, to be taken into consideration when estimating its economic production.
If this is done, several African countries’ debt to adjusted GDP ratios will drop, and they would have more room to borrow money to assist their development, according to Adesina.