Egypt's COP27 must not be a sham for Africa

A child sits inside a canoe with empty plastic bottles he collected to sell for recycling in the floating slum of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. [AP Photo]

At least 600 fossil fuel lobbyists and representatives of several other firms that massively contribute to the global warming blamed for the climate crisis were present at the climate talks that ended in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on Friday.

A lot of these lobbyists at COP27 had the pink labelled badges marked "Party" or "Party Overflow" that gave them access to negotiation rooms as negotiators and not just observers.

Certain African countries that afforded prime pavilions at the COP's Blue Zone, openly displayed their sponsors and partners in banners. Nigeria's, for instance, included oil companies at a time community in the Niger Delta, in Ogoni Land and several other places are dying from diseases and pollution caused by oil spills and gas flaring.

Same claims of fossil fuel firms sponsoring lobbyists to climate talks were made about the COP26 in Glasgow last year.

This is the case of inviting a hyena in a discussion to determine if sheep should be sheltered indoors or tethered to a pen out in the open.

The 30-minute restricted, scrutinised and closely monitored anti-fossil fuels demonstrations by activists in common areas may have done little to draw the attention of polluters to the moral obligation to view communities suffering climate induced stresses in the Global South as fellow humans.

But better little effort than none.

It is not by accident that more than 26 COPs later, hope as huge as Mount Sinai and the waters around it has not drawn us close enough to the targets to achieve significantly reduced warming.

But we must not lose hope, even as the Sharm El Sheikh COP is described as a sham with action on the Loss and Damage agenda pushed to COP28 next year.

Amid his many suggested solutions at the COP27, former US Vice President Al Gore cited teachings from Abrahamic religions.

"God has set before humanity a choice between blessings and curses, between life and death. We can continue the culture of death that surrounds our addiction to fossil fuels by digging up dead life forms from eons ago and burning them recklessly in ways that create more deaths..."

Looking at the climate crisis from a moral perspective may hugely complement the efforts to curb the problem. Al Gore attempted to drive this point home, to touch people's consciences in his speech. So many people of faith went to COP27, but mostly as observers than negotiators. They need to join such leaders on one hand and the grassroots on the other to push for hastened achievement of the 1.5 Degrees Celsius warming.

Spiritual leaders can help the world to choose the "blessings" that come with greener jobs from renewable energy. Africa, particularly, is blessed with wind and solar. They can help the elitists to see the scary images of families affected by climate crisis in the Horn of Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, for what they are; as those of fellow humans, and stop fueling their burning.

The justification for the insatiable appetite for fossil fuel money has been to reduce energy poverty for poor countries convinced to host the dirty projects. But since 1959, the level of poverty is worsening for people in Niger Delta, for instance.

Just like with war, some decisions made in boardrooms benefit only a few, but okay loss and damage, refugees and loss of lives and livelihoods. The Sharm El Sheikh COP should hand Africa a truly sustainable and widely shared prosperity.

Lynet Otieno is the Interim Communications Manager at GreenFaith. [email protected]