The inaugural Africa Climate Summit drew to a close on Wednesday, with the host, Kenya\u2019s president William Ruto, saying that a total of $23 billion had been pledged to green projects by governments, investors, development banks and philanthropists. <\/p>\n
The summit, which focussed on driving green growth and climate finance solutions, concluded with the \u201cNairobi Declaration,\u201d a call from African leaders for urgent action on climate change, which included a request for new global taxes on carbon pollution <\/strong>as well as phasing out coal use and ending fossil fuel subsidies. <\/p>\n African heads of state and government warned that many African countries face \u201cdisproportionate burdens and risks\u201d from climate change, and called on the global community \u201cto act with urgency\u201d in reducing planet-heating pollution and supporting the continent in addressing the problem. <\/p>\n \u201cAfrica is not historically responsible for global warming, but bears the brunt of its effect, impacting lives, livelihoods, and economies,\u201d the leaders said in the joint declaration. <\/p>\n Among the most eye-catching finance announcements, the United Arab Emirates pledged $4.5 billion to clean energy initiatives in Africa. The pledge was announced by Sultan Al-Jaber, the head of the UAE\u2019s national oil company, ADNOC, and the government-owned renewable energy company, Masdar. He will also serve as the president of COP28, the annual UN climate meeting that will take place in Dubai starting in November. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is our ambition that this will launch a new transformative partnership to jumpstart a pipeline of bankable clean energy projects in this important continent,\u201d Al-Jaber said, adding that the investment could lead to the generation of 15 gigawatts of clean energy by 2030. Africa\u2019s current clean energy generation capacity is 56 gigawatts. <\/p>\n The initiative marks a positive development, according to Yemi Osinbajo, former vice president of Nigeria and now an advisor for the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), a consortium that helps developing countries shift to clean energy. <\/p>\n Germany announced 450 million euros (about $481 million) of climate finance pledges, and and\u00a0the US pledged $30 million to support climate resilient food security efforts across Africa. Hundreds of millions more were offered following an initiative to boost Africa\u2019s carbon credit production 19-fold by 2030. <\/p>\n Carbon credits are\u00a0used by companies to\u00a0offset carbon emissions, and are usually generated by financing projects\u00a0that aim to reduce carbon pollution\u00a0in the\u00a0atmosphere, such as tree planting,\u00a0or reduce planet-heating pollution\u00a0by promoting switching to renewable energy, especially in developing countries. <\/p>\n \u201cCarbon credits could be a game-changer for Africa,\u201d said Osinbajo. \u201cThey have the potential to unlock billions for the climate finance needs of African economies while expanding energy access, creating jobs, protecting biodiversity, and driving climate action.\u201d <\/p>\n However, campaigners in Nairobi protested against this approach, arguing that carbon credits are flawed and <\/strong>allow wealthy countries and companies to continue to pollute. <\/p>\n They pointed to steps to achieve this, including accelerating efforts to reduce emissions, honoring the commitment to provide $100 billion in annual climate finance as promised at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference <\/strong>in Copenhagen, and upholding commitments to \u201ca fair and accelerated process of phasing down coal, and abolishment of all fossil fuel subsidies.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cDecarbonizing the global economy is also an opportunity to contribute to equality and shared prosperity,\u201d the leaders said. <\/p>\n According to Osinbajo, the summit provided a \u201cnew framing\u201d of Africa, not as victim, but as a key solution to the climate crisis. He said that \u201cwith its untapped renewable energy potential, the world\u2019s youngest and fastest growing workforce, and critical minerals and resources, (Africa) has the fundamentals to become a cost-competitive green industrial hub, greening both African and global consumption and removing carbon from the air.\u201d <\/p>\n\n The inaugural Africa Climate Summit drew to a close on Wednesday, with the host, Kenya\u2019s president William Ruto, saying that a total of $23 billion had been pledged to green projects by governments, investors, development banks and philanthropists. The summit, which focussed on driving green growth and climate finance solutions, concluded with the \u201cNairobi Declaration,\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} A new framing<\/h2>\n
<\/strong>In the joint declaration, African leaders called upon the global community \u201cto act with urgency in reducing emissions, fulfilling its obligations, keeping past promises, and supporting the continent in addressing climate change.\u201d <\/p>\n