8 September, 2023, Nairobi -   The first ever African Climate Summit ended with a weak and inadequate declaration and clear that old colonial attitudes from Global North continue to dictate Africa’s climate policy, imposing failed and dangerous carbon markets on the continent.

• African People remain committed to phasing out fossil fuels.

• The Global North continues to push a neocolonial agenda of land-grabbing in Africa through carbon markets.

• The Summit has ignited African climate movements.

• The Grassroots movement further ignited to resist dangerous distraction and to mobilise for Africa to harness its vast renewable potential.

Responding to the outcome Mohamed Adow, Founding Director of think tank Power Shift Africa, said: “We hoped this first African climate summit would see a radical, people-centred vision for Africa, but the final declaration was disappointingly similar to previous summits that produced inadequate results.  We want to see Africa forging a path that embraces Pan-African solidarity, putting people before profit, and that harness our unique position in history and vast renewable energy potential. Rather than providing real and public funding into African renewables and adaptation, this week rich countries pledged money to prop up carbon markets that have never worked, neither in Africa nor elsewhere. They are wasting money that should be spent on real solutions.”

The debates around the summit have however also brought some tangible benefits. It has boosted awareness of the climate crisis and exposed the vested interests in play.

Mohamed Adow said: “This summit has awoken a sleeping giant in the shape of people’s power and mobilisation. Regarding climate change, Africa has been described as least responsible, most impacted, least informed. That is now changing.  People are waking up to the reality of the climate crisis.  Other big summits have taken place on African soil before, but nothing has mobilised people like the reactions to the problematic way this meeting has been pushed by certain interests. There is a new consciousness about what is at stake and what needs to happen.”

Western interference was widely criticised in the lead up to the meeting and it was clear that those interests dictated much of the discussion at the summit. 

Ikal Ang’elei of Friends of Lake Turkana: “US climate envoy John Kerry and the US’s lead negotiator for COP28, Trigg Talley, were in town. But this was not a UNFCCC negotiation, so what were they doing here?  Countries and companies from the Global North have promised huge funding to set up carbon markets in Africa, but it is polluting companies, fossil fuel giants, and credit brokers that will benefit the most from these schemes, while land is stolen from communities.  Carbon credits are really ‘pollution permits’ to allow rich polluting companies to continue business as usual without really decarbonising their businesses.” 

Joab Okanda of Christian Aid said: “This Declaration rightly calls attention to the ways in the global economy continues to structurally disadvantage Africa and exclude African voices from economic decision-making. When all financial flows are accounted for with trade, aid, debt, and more, the Global South loses more than $2 trillion to the Global North every year. In this context, the billions that are talked about at these summits are shown to be wholly insufficient. We need more than just aid and climate finance, we need a genuine structural change to the value chains and resource flows of the global economy. But unfortunately, this summit fell well short of rising to this challenge and articulating an African vision for systemic and structural change. Instead, it was more concerned with how to sell off African land to polluters. The People’s Declaration on the contrary, lays out a plan to rise to the true scale of this challenge, and must be something governments take seriously as they plan ahead.

The language of the Summit declaration clearly points to external influence of the Summit agenda.

Okanda added: “It is noticeable that the first commitment our leaders make is to take steps to attract investment which points to the large role of the private sector in the organization of this Summit and the discourse more generally that the African people have been calling out has been calling out.”

Mary Afan, a small holder farmer representing over two million women farmers across all 36 states in Nigeria added: “The outcome of the summit may be disappointing, but we are not agonising about the result, we’re organising.  We are mobilising for a long term fight and our leaders won’t be able to ignore us.  This week we’ve seen a powerful People’s Assembly, a climate justice march in central Nairobi, and a People’s Declaration which sets out a vision far more inspiring and practical than the one signed by the politicians.”

The fossil fuel industry has escalated its efforts to exploit Africa in recent years, both as a place to plunder fossil fuels but also to pursue carbon trading markets, which are in reality markets for pollution permits and continued use of Africa as a dumping ground. While carbon markets where heavily pushed at the summit, a partial victory was the absence of explicit fossil fuel promotion in the Declaration.

Marina Agortimevor of Africa Coal Network, said: “Africa is the youngest continent, with incredible renewable resources, plenty of fertile land, and 40% of the critical minerals for the energy transition. African people are committed to phasing out fossil fuels and already African countries like Kenya are close to having a 100% renewable electricity mix.  Fossil fuel lobbyists didn’t get what they wanted from this summit and that is a victory. But African countries need proper funding into renewables and people focussed adaptation projects if it is to develop and prosper along a clean path that brings prosperity to the people that are least responsible for the climate crisis.” 

Hadi Yakubu of Africans Rising, said: “Africa’s critical minerals are the next battleground. We are already seeing elite interests in foreign governments, big companies, and even our own ministries work to capture these resources and repeat the failed playbook of extractivism and export that we’ve seen with Africa’s fossil fuels, commodities, and crops. We cannot allow more of our strategic resources to be captured while communities are left behind. We need a critical minerals plan that includes genuine environmental and social safeguards, clear processes for community ownership, and strong Pan-African industrial planning to ensure our resources are used to build domestic renewable energy production capabilities. If more African resources are simply sold off in big export deals while we are left to import expensive finished products, we will never achieve true sovereignty.”

Picture from © Victor Edwin