The African People's Climate and Development Declaration 2023

Context

From the 3rd to 6th September, 2023, we the people of the great lands across Africa, including people from social movements and civil society, trade unions, women, indigenous peoples, young people, men, people living with disabilities, media organisations, faith-based groups and many others, gathered in Nairobi, Kenya and committed to this declaration on African climate and development priorities and demands.

This People’s assembly is happening concurrently with the first Africa Climate Summit (ACS). The ACS ought to have been the opportunity to put forward a real and progressive stance on African climate action and integrated development in a way that centres African solutions and strategies and breaks from the business as usual of Africa being a pawn in the plans of others. Instead it is a space that has been co-opted and captured by foreign interests and private sector greed who are using the summit to push their dangerous distractions and sell off African lands to the highest bidder in the name of “Green Growth” and carbon markets.

This Declaration outlines what Africa needs to pursue moving forward, it outlines what we as peoples need/commit to strive for, and what we demand our governments to do both domestically and in multilateral spaces such as COP28, IMF-WB meetings etc.

We recognise that if Africa doesn’t have a plan for our own destiny and future, we will continue be the subject of others’ plans, with continued exploitation, extraction and colonisation.

Realities we recognise

Africa is the least responsible for climate change

Africa contributes less than 4% of annual greenhouse gas emissions currently and less than 1% of cumulative historical emissions), but is the most vulnerable to climate-induced loss and damage to its lands, its crops, its infrastructure, and its peoples.

Africa has faced centuries of oppression

The region faces violation of rights of its people, communities and destruction of our nature and livelihoods, much of which has been done with the motivation of resource theft and extraction.

Africa faces immense climate induced challenges…

in the coming decades: we are already facing increased droughts, floods, famines, and crop failures. Hundreds of million Africans will face climate change induced displacement failing radical change - this will cause unmeasurable loss, suffering, conflict and ultimately societal break down.

We cannot secure climate justice within the boundaries of a broken system…

the existing neoliberal, authoritarian, extractive, neo-colonial, racist, patriarchal systems and societies that close civic space and do not ensure the human rights of all people and communities, particularly those who defend these rights.

We need a reversal of global financial flows…

meaningfully addressing the climate crisis requires reparations and financing in the order of trillions, not the billions which are promised (and remain undelivered); net global financial flows (including all trade, aid, debt, etc.) see flows of over $2 trillion going from Global South to Global North every year - this needs to be reversed as a requisite for real, meaningful, lasting change.

Principles we stand by

System change not climate change

We do not see climate change as a problem in isolation, nor as a simple equation of particles in the atmosphere, but rather as the result of a fundamentally broken system of power, politics, and economics which has put elite interests ahead of the people’s, and allowed the crossing of fundamental natural and social boundaries in the name of profit - this cannot be solved through technology changes alone but requires a fundamental systems change to our societies.

Radical change, not tranquilising gradualism

We cannot afford baby steps and edits around the edges - the scale and speed of change needed is unprecedented and cannot be achieved through incremental changes to fundamentally flawed systems.

Equity and historical responsibility

Rich nations have historical responsibilities for the climate crisis and should fulfil their obligations and fair shares, as per enshrined principles of ‘Common but Differentiated Rights and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC)’, They must reduce their emissions to real zero, but must also provide poorer nations the scale of financial support needed to address the crisis. There needs to be a global convergence of per capita material and energy use to sufficiency levels and well-being for all.

People power and community led solutions

Real solutions to climate change cannot be designed in boardrooms and ivory towers - they must come from genuine consultation with people and communities and must put people-centred (not profit-centred) goals at their core.

Equity, Justice & Equality

within our societies, and in our own movements, as regards gender, race, age, abilities, sexual orientation, Indigenous Peoples' rights and any other area that manifest discrimination and abuse.

Human rights and protection of defenders

There can be no climate justice without human rights; we must work to protect people whose rights are being infringed, especially those facing persecution by governments and companies for their defense of communities, lands, and environmental integrity.

Free media and freedom of speech and opposition

Free media and free speech play a critical role in providing the information, oversight, and accountability necessary to root out the injustices of the dominant system - we cannot achieve system change without these fundamental freedoms being protected.

False solutions we reject

  • Fossil fuels, which must remain in the ground. We demand immediate stop of all expansion of fossil fuel extraction and rapid, equitable phasing out of existing production of oil, gas and coal everywhere. Frontline struggles against extraction must be supported everywhere.

  • Carbon markets and offsets, which are in reality pollution permits for corporations and wealthy countries to continue business as usual, do nothing to reduce overall emissions or genuinely decarbonise industries. Companies buying offsets simply pass on the additional costs to their customers (including African consumers). Carbon markets also undermine land rights and displace smallholder farming communities while benefiting traders in financial markets

  • Geoengineering represents the ultimate dangerous distraction and must be firmly rejected. African peoples stand by African governments’ recent decision to call for a global Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering. Deployment of solar geoengineering would pose an existential threat to the whole planet, while current attempts to falsely present this sun-dimming technology as an escape route undermines the momentum for radical action/ transformative change to real solutions.

  • Green hydrogen for export does nothing to increase access for the 600 million Africans without access to energy. Instead it turns our African renewable energy into an exportable commodity and ships our energy overseas. It is a neo-colonial extraction of African energy and fresh water resources. Renewable energy needs to be prioritised for domestic use, not foreign markets. Seawater desalination for green hydrogen production is also harmful for our marine ecosystem. Green hydrogen for low value-added manufacturing in Africa reproduces structural economic traps that we must overcome.

  • Distant and hollow Net zero targets as distractions from immediate, transformative actions to Real Zero emissions and real solutions to the climate crisis. The Net-zero framing promotes business-as-usual through offsets and dangerous assumptions that non-existing, risky technologies will somehow come to rescue in the future.

  • Dangerous new technologies and technofixes that distract from real solutions and consolidate corporate concentration of power, destroy ecosystems and harm people and communities – CCS, geoengineering-scale carbon dioxide removal technologies such as BECCS, DACS, ocean fertilisation; digitalisation of agriculture; gene drives; nuclear power; large-scale hydropower and bioenergy, and other dangerous distractions must be countered and rejected.

  • Debt restructuring and incremental financial reforms are superficial band aid solutions that in reality perpetuate the external debt trap. Access to loans with more favourable terms is helpful, but if strategic investments are not channelled towards transformative sectors such as food sovereignty, agroecology, renewable energy sovereignty, and non-extractive high value-added industries, then loans will continue to fuel the external debt trap.

  • Export-led growth based on extractive industries and low value-added manufacturing has deepened Africa’s trade imbalance and technological dependence, which continues to fuel our external debt problems. Assembly-line manufacturing that imports all the intermediate components, the machinery, the packaging, and the requisite energy to produce electricity, and relies on low-cost labour (often subsidised) is a dangerous distraction from Africa’s strategic priorities.

Pictures from © Victor Edwin

Real Solutions We Demand

  • African people can and must champion models of development that effectively ensure life, dignity, ecosystem health, sufficiency and genuine well-being – and thereby expose and discard current maldevelopment and narrow, economic growth-obsessed approaches imposed by both African and Global elites.

  • Africa has a proud tradition of independent action and thought that breaks with colonial mindsets and dependency. Africa’s future lie in advancing visions grounded in African cultures, ecology, solidarity and pan-African unity and self-reliance.

  • Everyone has the right to food, energy, education, health, housing and other basic needs – ensuring such rights must constitute over-riding priorities of both the state, local governments and communities.

  • Climate finance is important, but is only a subset of reparations for colonial atrocities and the need for real overhaul of the global financial architecture where financial flows from South to North are reversed and structural traps done away with. Climate finance must enable African countries to leap-frog to zero-carbon societies, provide for necessary adaptation and cover all loss and damage needs. Illegitimate debts must be cancelled.

  • Africa is endowed with the world’s most sun and wind potential, which can meet all African energy needs with renewable, socially and environmentally sound, people-centred renewable energy. This new 100% renewable energy system must be characterised by energy sovereignty and energy democracy with significant local and diverse ownership at the core. It must avoid the corporate concentration of past fossil fuel energy systems and ensure respect for human, land and indigenous rights both in terms of deployment and extraction of critical minerals.

  • Africa needs to regain self-sufficiency in food production through agroecology and food systems that ensure food sovereignty and farmers rights. The industrialised food systems, including its backing by commercial and multilateral banks must be effectively countered, with appropriate public support for peasant agriculture and local food production.

  • Africa must prioritise the use of its strategic minerals to add value, create horizontal linkages across the continent, manufacture and deploy the building blocks of its development (renewable energy, agriculture, transportation, health, sanitation, etc.). High-tech industrialisation requires economies of scale that are best achieved by leveraging the complementarity of our resources and capabilities, and the huge market demand we have on the continent. African industrialisation must be a very different and gentle kind of industrialisation, that works for the common good with workers’, social and environmental rights at the core.

  • African countries need to find ways to ensure social protection for all its citizens, and ensure that workers and communities negatively affected by transitions to renewable energy and zero-carbon systems are supported. These and other public and state responsibilities require effective and fair taxation, particularly of elites and foreign corporations.

  • In order to preserve forests, wetlands, grazing lands, and other ecosystems on land, lakes and seas and that respects the rights of local populations. Local stewardship, indigenous rights and Free and Prior Informed Consent are key for protection of biodiversity and local livelihoods. ‘Nature-based solutions’ have become synonymous with commodification of nature and carbon offsets and must be effectively countered and exposed.

  • Public and people-led technology assessments must guide and control any introduction of new technologies before they are commercialised and imposed on societies.

  • African countries must counter the excessive power, extraction and undue political interference by Transnational corporations through both domestic means, collective efforts and in advancing multilateral and UN regulations.

This People’s Declaration is a living document that seeks to voice aspirations and concerns of a wide diversity of movements and organisations, across all kinds of themes and constituencies. It conveys a subset of the many struggles and themes we are involved with. It builds on and acknowledges numerous people’s manifestos, declarations and demands.

Pictures from © Victor Edwin