confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Coordinating carbon
Blue Lines
With just six months before the climate change treaty talks in
Paris, Africa is battling to coordinate an effective negotiating
strategy. Governments should muster the political will, says the Africa
Progress Panel (APP), to push harder to defend the interests of a
continent that contributes least to global warming yet suffers most
from it through drought, desertification and increasingly frequent
flooding.
In its latest, 180-page report, the APP, under former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
says the treaty should stipulate phasing out the estimated US$600
billion a year subsidies on fossil fuels. 'They should be pricing
carbon out of the market through taxation, not subsidising a climate
catastrophe,' says Annan. The European Union, China and the United States have improved their
position on fossil fuels but Australia,
Canada, Japan and Russia have withdrawn from serious
dialogue, says the APP.
Most importantly for Africa, the report argues there should be no
trade-off between growth and low-carbon development. It sets out
research showing how the pioneering technology being developed for
low-cost, renewable energy in storing and distributing solar, wind and
mini-hydro electricity could give Africa an even bigger economic boost
than the introduction of mobile telephone technology two decades ago.
Priorities might include redirecting over $21 billion spent annually on
subsidising loss-making utilities and electricity consumption to
connecting remote areas and developing renewable energy.
