As a mammoth COP29 got under way this week, delegates from developing countries converged on Baku, the capital city of host Azerbaijan, armed with concrete positions of what exactly they want from the conference.
Dubbed the “finance COP” this year’s event will be seeking agreement on what it will cost to wean the world off fossil fuels and how the tab will be split.
More precisely, the bigger debate is how to fund the low-income countries $2.4 billion energy transition bill. Some proposals suggest that developing countries, which see themselves more as victims than offenders in the climate change debate, would need to foot roughly two-thirds, or $1.4 billion of that amount.
For perspective, Africa which contributes just 3.8 percent to global emissions, is one of the regions of the world most exposed to the impacts of global warming.
Africa’s expectations in Baku revolve around striking a deal in which the more developed countries, which also happen to be the biggest emitters, foot the cost of their transition to clean energy, adaptation measures, recovery from climate-change induced disasters and conservation.
Their idea of a just transition envisages a situation where they are allowed to continue exploiting and using fossil fuels to drive their economies even as they implement measures to wean themselves off it.
All these are perfectly reasonable demands, except that they miss certain points. Ultimately, and the case for charity notwithstanding, it is Africa’s job to pull itself out of the mess it is in.
To achieve that requires more creative thinking, a clear-headed assessment of available options and discarding the notion that others can or should do the heavy-lifting.
With potential donors also wondering if governments can be trusted with climate finance, African leaders should be working seriously to address the continent’s governance deficit by instituting more accountable leadership.
Also, leaders should look beyond donations from the Global North because that might inadvertently preserve the present status quo of unequal trade terms.
Beyond aid, leaders should be bargaining for a more equitable marketplace in which the goods developing countries produce using fossil fuels, are not subjected to carbon taxes.
Unless proactive steps are taken by Africa, a subterranean threat that is embedded in the green transition, is that the shift to cleaner technologies, can perpetuate the existing knowledge gap between the north and the south, and effectively maintain the region as a supplier of low-priced raw materials to industrial economies.
A just transition is therefore not necessarily about reparations, but giving developing nations the opportunities to play catch-up through knowledge transfer, foreign direct investment with a bias towards value addition to the region’s resources and a marketplace that pays fair value for its output.
The irony is that as the rest of the world transitions to new cleaner technologies, the old fossil-based technology will become costlier.
To continue using fossil fuels and maintain a competitive advantage, Africa will need to domesticate the production of oil processing technology.
However, without culture change even that might not be enough. If corruption concentrates national resources in the hands of a small elite, whatever grace period is allowed is likely to pass without the continent turning the corner.
