UN’s top Climate Change event, COP29 Azerbaijan Summit, kicked off on Monday 11th. It’s finally time for African negotiators to prepare their arguments and support points.
The COP29 Summit has already had its share of drama. Azerbaijan President, Ilham Aliyev has faced criticism due to his speech where he praises the use of oil and gas in the modern-day era. Moreover, he criticizes Western news and media for spreading fake news and refers to oil & gas resources as a gift from God!
What will be Africa’s point of drama? According to the African Development Bank (AFDB), Africa only gets 3 to 4% of climate finance compensation despite having 9/10 vulnerable nations to climate change.
Therefore, AFDB and other financial stakeholders have a more significant task of demanding climate finance compensation, grants, and loans. This will enable and support the continent’s climate adaptation efforts, including controlling climate calamities damage. Furthermore, this year’s theme is dubbed “Finance COP.”
In the run-up to the COP29 Summit, AFDB’s president, Akinumwi Adesina, stated, “There is no reason why Africa should be greenly poor. Africa should be greenly wealthy by proper valuation of its vast contributions to global environmental services.”
Along with AFDB, other African negotiators like Kenyan Environment Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale call for reevaluating Africa’s forests and carbon sinks as financial resources. This will be introduced as “Measuring Green Wealth of Africa.” True to that, such an initiative on carbon-rich regions could have increased by $66.1 billion (2.2%) by 2022.
Therefore, African countries and negotiators have leverage, which includes being the lowest emitters, only 4%, but suffering the most under climate change. Watch out for more updates on the COP29 Azerbaijan Summit.
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