Africa Climate Summit 2023 concluded with Nairobi Declaration
Africa Climate Summit 2023 is the first ever climate summit on climate change in Africa ended on Wednesday with Nairobi Declaration calling for world leaders to back global taxes to fund climate action financial reforms to support African countries for climate crisis.
After two days of extensive deliberations around the devastating impacts of Climate Change across the continent and globally, African political and business leaders in Kenya have adopted the Nairobi Declaration to raise 23 billion dollars for green growth, mitigation and adaptation to address climate challenges in Africa.
During the summit, governments and private investors committed billions of dollars to green initiatives, including a $4.5 billion pledge by November's COP28 hosts the United Arab Emirates (UAE). But the declaration warned that unlocking green growth across the continent "on a scale that can contribute meaningfully to decarbonization of the global economy" required a massive increase in funding.
The declaration is expected to point out Africa's position on climate change, climate financing, solutions to climate change, and how Africa plans to tackle climate issues as guided by the 5 themes of the Africa Climate Summit.
“The Nairobi declaration we make to the world today defines and amplifies the African position on the way forward in climate action, and the fundamentals that the international community must attend to in order to ensure that humanity’s economic and ecological imperatives are effectively, coherently, and sustainably achieved.” said H.E President William Ruto, Republic of Kenya and Chairman of CAHOSCC at the African Union.
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.
To achieve the necessary emissions reduction targets and ensure adequate funding for climate action, a comprehensive global funding mechanism is required. HE President Ruto advocates for targeted taxes on sectors like aviation and maritime, the removal of fossil fuel subsidies worldwide, and the implementation of a global fossil fuel tax.
Additionally, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAM) can be deployed as a tax for targeted mitigation and adaptation efforts. Exploring a Financial Transactions Tax on a global scale is another potential avenue for generating significant revenue.
The Africa Climate Summit 2023 is the crucial part of Africa’s preparation for the next COP28, which is scheduled to take place in Dubai-UAE in December. It has largely featured leaders in government, business and civil society, many of them veterans of other climate gatherings and the biggest world summit on Climate Change. The Africa Summit closed and Africa Climate Week still going on until Friday.
