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Climate action is the greatest economic opportunity of this century, especially for Africa, stated United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell in his address at the 10th Special Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
AMCEN started on August 30, 2024 and will continue till September 6, 2024. The sessions are being held under the theme 'Raising Africa's Ambition to Reduce Land Degradation, Desertification and Drought'.
After centuries of abuse and neglect, this presents Africa with the greatest potential to date for the advancement of its people, communities and economies, he said.
Stiell also issued a dire warning about the consequences of unchecked global warming. Climate change is causing Africa to warm more quickly than the rest of the world and the people least responsible for disasters are disproportionately affected, he stressed.
Many African countries are losing up to 5% of their GDP as a result of climate impacts, and that this is impeding economic growth, he said, citing from the State of the Climate in Africa 2023 report released September 2, 2024.
He alerted that the impacts of climate change are far-reaching and include effect on food production, contributing to starvation and re-emergence of famine. This also leads to food inflation. Desertification and habitat degradation are causing forced displacement of people, he said.
Stiell urged international leaders to acknowledge that the climate catastrophe is a global issue requiring a coordinated response, particularly those from the G20. “If the climate and economic crises are globally interlinked. So too are the solutions.”
He recalled the historic first-ever global stocktake of climate action and the ambitious commitments by countries, which include the need to fairly transition away from fossil fuels, treble the amount of electricity coming from renewable sources and look into innovative ways to double energy efficiency.
These, he noted, have the potential to unlock major economic and human gains for Africa such as access to affordable energy for all. Linking nature-based climate solutions with biodiversity protection and land restoration will drive progress right across the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, he emphasised.
Although Africa has enormous potential, the continent receives very little funding — just $2.6 billion of the more than $400 billion that was spent on clean energy globally last year went to the continent, he highlighted.
He called on COP29 to be held in Baku to prioritise climate finance, including a new international climate finance objective based on the requirements of developing countries and demanded a five-fold increase in renewable energy investment in Africa by 2030.
In his concluding remarks, Stiell underlined the significance of Africa taking the lead in finding global climate solutions and restated UN Climate Change's pledge to assist the continent at every stage.