The Sunday News
ON the surface, the subject of climate change can be dismissed as unimportant, but just like a war it leaves a trail of destruction on the economy, infrastructure, human life, politics and the social structure of any country.
It is associated with extreme weather phenomenon as droughts, floods, heat waves and many others that have over the years caused deaths and displacements of millions around the world.
Some are quick to dismiss it as full of science and science is known to be fictitious at times but it is real — as factual as the sun will rise tomorrow and a subject that has caused a splitting headache among Heads of States as at the Conference of Parties 21 (COP 21) that was held recently in the French capital, Paris.
COP 21 has come and gone and like so many other conferences before it — 20 to be specific, it promises to be a loud sounding nothing, a talk show with a lot of rhetoric than action as countries continue to be seized with looking at individual short-term benefits than the larger scale catastrophe and the future of mother earth.
The conference was, according to reports and experts, not very different to the other 20 such conferences before it in that it was attended by the unscrupulous heads of developed countries and the fastidious and very sincere heads of developing countries especially Africa.
And the AU chair President Mugabe was not slow in exposing the developed world’s hypocrisy and pointing to the strong commitment displayed by the not so resourced developing countries.
He rightly pointed out that the bickering and wavering attitude of the developed world sought a perpetual subjection and reliance of Africa on the developed West as it strongly impedes on Africa’s development.
He put the blame squarely on the developed world for not being sincere in the fight against climate change and trying to undo instead of synthesising the agreements that were already in place such as the Kyoto Protocol.
He challenged the developed countries to take a leading role in combating climate change.
“When we express our expectations on such issues as mitigation and adaptation, loss and damage, provision of long-term financial resources, technology development and transfer, capacity building, we do so as partners not as deserving objects of charity from the developed world,” said President Mugabe at COP21 in Paris.
He added that African countries have pledged mitigation measures that exceed those of developed countries in spite of their less contribution to climate change and in spite of limited capacity to withstand its destructive efforts.
Scrupulous developed world and a sincere Africa
The developed world has always been so crooky but that is not very new, for history is replete with examples of dismally failed attempts at partnerships or and partnerships between the developed and developing word with no common ground struck, for there are no common interests to talk about.
Despite the fact that climate change is a global phenomenon, a global gangrene and a hydra with jaws wide open and ready to swallow the remaining vestiges of the global social, economic and political order, the developed world’s commitment to curbing the lurking global danger is not only questionable but worrying.
One would have expected that commonality will be derived from the problem being global in nature but the developed world has remained dodgy, deceitful and uncommitted to using the two most common words that were coined by climate change experts in the language of climate change — adaptation and mitigation.
All that the developed world had said in the past 20 years about how they are going to be dealing with the grim effects of climate change proved to be promises and lies as nothing tangible has come out.
This has, however, not done anything to stop climate change from showing its dark side as the world has continued to lose both human life, infrastructure and property to the vagaries of extreme weather conditions themselves a true manifestation of global changes in climate.
There is no doubt that the effects of the changes in climate have already been felt in most parts of the world. Africa whose economies and social well being is agrarian based is one of the most affected and it’s sincerity in dealing with the effects of climate change emanate from the need to save both human life and its economies that are fed from agriculture.
And its agriculture is mostly from rain-fed water. But very few developed countries rely on agriculture and therefore they worry less about that.
It is interestingly ironic that while they are accepting that they are the main drivers of climate change through industrialisation; they are refusing the little obligation to pay for the mitigation and adaptation measures.
The developed world has reneged on the promise to fund the effects of what they have publicly admitted to causing and have refused to treat Africa as an unequal partner in the whole climate change debate.
And Africa has no problem getting into the ring with no kid gloves but as an equal partner in the fight against climate change for it stands to lose much if it chooses to stand idle and watch the bickering developed world.
Although reports say more than 75 percent of the 195 members to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have announced their climate action plans, their collective pledges are not compatible with capping global temperature rise at the higher safe limit of 1,5 degrees Celsius. But most importantly the action plans should be acted upon and not remain plans.
When a lion plays with a zebra’s cub
When a lion is seen playing with a zebra’s cub it is certainly not looking for friendship and the zebra’s cub should be extremely cautious.
It is all too clear that the climate change tug-of-war between the developing and developed world is both economic and political. The West that has industrialised and wants to continue doing so is raising a red climate change flag for Africa to stop doing the same.
And not industrialising for Africa means continued reliance on the developed world for finished products and it will spell a full-stop to the development efforts of Africa and leave it to be carried on the economic back of the West.
Not industrialising means that the economic gap between the developed and developing countries remains and will eventually widen.
In other words beneath the veneer of the real climate change issue lies the need and the push by the West to perpetuate Africa’s problems to deal with. And that the subject touches directly on Africa’s agrarian economies, the expectation is that there will be more food riots in Africa than they were before. And history has taught us that food riots are just the beginning of revolts and rebellion and provide the West with a platform to loot and intervene in African affairs.
There are a lot of long term effects and possible answers as to why the developed world is reluctant to fund the climate change deals and to be sincere in dealing with Africa. There are more benefits to them in an unstable and torn apart Africa, an Africa that is in war with itself than there are to a peaceful and developing Africa.
They have perpetually been deferring action to the future. As part of conditions for a new climate deal, rich countries have arm-twisted poor countries in Africa and elsewhere into taking on mitigatory actions, actions that may hinder growth in their fledgling economies.
And President Mugabe hit just below the belt when he said Africa could not take on more responsibilities to fight climate change as that would detract from the continent’s development efforts.
“We cannot and will not assume more obligations. Doing so will dent our development aspirations and in particular our efforts to eradicate poverty,” said President Mugabe.
The hypocrisy becomes even clearer given the rich countries’ reluctance to take on deeper emission cuts; their unwillingness to finance Africa’s adaptation at a scale compatible with the climate damage they have caused; and the reluctance to provide affordable technologies to help poor nations cope with climate change.
In the last two decades or so, the endemically incremental UN climate talks have proved dysfunctional, with an escalation in global emissions and a multiplication of deadly extreme climate events in the developing world.
