Africa: Energy and Climate Change From Addis to Copenhagen

1. Africa: Energy and Climate Change From Addis to Copenhagen October 23, 2009 MersieEjigu Yale-REIL-REEP Conference

2. Africa is huge and heterogeneous • Accounts for about one-fifth of the world's land surface • Extends 4,800 miles north to south and 4,500 miles east to west • Larger than the U.S., Europe, India, China, Argentina, and New Zealand combined • Endowed with huge ecological, cultural, and economic diversity

3. Geographic Size of Africa in Relation to Major Regions and Countries

4. Africa’s energy consumption and production is tied to climate change • Africa accounts for 5.7 percent of global energy consumption, the lowest level in the world. • Traditional biomass (solid wood, twigs, and cow dung) accounts for 59 percent, electricity 8 percent, petroleum 25 percent, and coal and gas each 4 percent.

5. Africa’s energy consumption and production is tied to climate change (cont.) • Severe deforestation and land degradation threatens traditional energy resources and erodes the capacity to sequestrate carbon • Africa loses ten to forty percent of its primary energy input • Indoor pollution causes widespread respiratory infections.

11. Manifestations of climate change in Africa • Increased frequency and length of drought • Greater rainfall variability and changes in rainfall patterns that disrupt traditional crop cycles • Shifts in human settlements resulting from changes in rainfall distribution • Higher temperatures, increased evaporation, and floods • Lower water availability, declining water tables, drying of hydropower dams, and resulting power shortages • Increase in plant and animal pests and diseases

12. Africa’s vulnerability to climate risks • Over 80 percent of the African population derives its livelihoods from subsistence rain fed agriculture • Climate change/variability impact is wide-spread – food production and processing, availability and quality of water, rural settlements, agro-industries, energy, transport, and trade. • Some of Africa’s largest cities such as Cape Town, Dar-es-Salaam, Alexandria and Maputo would be submerged under rising sea levels in the next 100 years; displacing place well over 70 million people

13. Africa’s vulnerability to climate risks (cont.) • Climate amplifies political and ethnic tensions and instability • UNEP’s reports show a 30 percent decline of rainfall in Darfur during the past 80 years, with a projected decline of 70 percent in the years to come (UNEP 2007). • Reduced supply and growing demand for water and pasture will, in some places, lead to increasing competition between different sectors of society, different communities and different countries.

14. Africa’s awakening: the rationale for a common position • Africa contributes little to the greenhouse gas emissions (less than 1 percent) blamed for warming, but the continent is hit hardest by the droughts, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels created by climate change. • The lack of a coordinated stance on global warming by African governments has placed serious limitations on Africa’s ability to negotiate. • The South (Group of 77 - G-77) does not necessarily represent the views of poor countries - climate change negotiations have acquired an arbitrary North-South dichotomy (rich North and poor South) .

15. Africa’s awakening: the rationale for a common position (cont.) • Africa was largely ignored, lest marginalized in the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol • Incentives and support measures given to special categories like the least developed countries and the small island states, African countries did not benefit broadly

16. One Africa, One Voice, One Position' • The Africa preparatory meeting on the common position has been going in Addis Ababa this week and comes to an end today. But from various documents, the following can be discerned that: • Africa will be represented by one delegation in Copenhagen defending a united stand and demanding compensation.

17. One Africa, One Voice, One Position (cont.) • Africa demands the establishment of a special fund (about $67 billion annually in compensation) to cope with the impact of climate change. • The fund should have equitable governance and simplified access procedure.

18. One Africa, One Voice, One Position (cont.) • Africa demands also that developed countries cut emissions by at least 40% by 2020 • Africa’s priority will be climate adaptation, supported by capacity building, financing, and technology development and transfer

19. One Africa, One Voice, One Position (cont.) • Improvement and modification of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in order to ensure equitable geographical distribution of projects • Agreement to mainstream climate change adaptation measures into national and regional development plans, policies and strategies.

20. One Africa, One Voice, One Position - challenges • The Fallacy of the Adaptation-Mitigation Divide - poverty and vulnerability should not be seen as a license to pursue unsustainable development paths. • Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD),could provide development dividends and additional resources to support adaptation to climate change. • Livestock emissions: still grossly underestimated- in fact may account for at least half of all human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs) (WWI)

21. Conclusion • Africa is fast becoming an important player in cleaner and renewable energy sources. For example, only 0.3% of sunlight falling on the Sahara and Middle Eastern deserts can potentially provide all of Europe’s energy needs because of its intensity • Yet renewable energy policy development is lagging and capacity remains weak • Countries lack renewable energy policy that is sound, realistic, and forward looking • Current efforts are driven by aggressive investors and there are no mechanisms to enforce environmental and social sustainability - China, India, and now Venezuela,

22. Conclusion (cont.) • The vigorous position Africa has taken with climate change is likely to translate to a vigorous action on renewable energy. • More work needs to be done in renewable energy research and policy development that engages African universities. THANK YOU