African Climate Summit urges world leaders to back global tax on fossil fuels

The first African Climate Summit has ended with a call for world leaders to rally behind a global carbon tax on fossil fuels, aviation and maritime transport.

It is also seeking reform of the world financial system that forces African nations to pay more to borrow money.

The declaration backed by the leaders of the continent of 1.3 billion people — a population set to double by 2050 — calls on the world’s biggest emitters of planet-warming greenhouse gases and its richest countries to keep their promises.

It notes especially the unfulfilled pledge of 100 billion dollars annually to developing nations in climate finance, made 14 years ago.

“No country should ever have to choose between development aspirations and climate action,” the declaration says.

Adopted unanimously, the statement also calls for Africa’s vast mineral wealth to be processed on the continent, noting that “decarbonising the global economy is also an opportunity to contribute to equality and shared prosperity”.

Kenyan President William Ruto, a host of the summit, said 23 billion dollars in commitments had been made at the event.

The summit has sought to reframe the African continent, which has enormous amounts of clean energy minerals and renewable energy sources, as less of a victim of climate change driven by the world’s biggest economies and more of the solution.

But investment in the continent in exchange for the ability to keep polluting elsewhere has angered some in Africa who prefer to see China, the United States, India, the European Union and others rein in their emissions of greenhouse gases.

Those carbon markets are “bogus solutions”, a Nigerian environmental advocate told the summit.

The summit is part of Africa’s preparation for the next United Nations climate change conference, which is scheduled to take place in Dubai in December.

The summit has largely featured leaders in government, business and civil society, many of them veterans of other climate gatherings.

“Heading from event to event doesn’t leave us with a lot of constructive thinking time” to bridge the gaps that still divide communities on the best ways to reduce emissions, said Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Carbon markets, in which polluters effectively offset emissions by investing in tree-planting or conservation initiatives, are cheaper to purchase in Africa than in many other parts of the world where schemes are more strictly regulated.

African nations seek a better price to help achieve their own emission-reduction targets.

In Africa’s market, the continent earns less than 10 dollars per ton of carbon. Other regions can receive more than 100 dollars for the same amount.

In carbon trading, one credit issued equals one ton of carbon dioxide or another greenhouse gas equivalent removed from the atmosphere.

The voluntary carbon market, which remains dominant in Africa, has been plagued by integrity and transparency concerns. Environmental groups are concerned it is a free pass to keep polluting.