Africa Climate Summit pledges flop as billions still undelivered

President William Ruto and other leaders witness the historic inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam at Benishangul-Gumuz region in Ethiopia.[PCS]

A paltry 0.5 per cent of funds pledged at the first Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi has been disbursed, dealing a blow to the continent’s renewable energy and climate adaptation.

A review of the pledges made during the September 2023 summit in Nairobi by an expert reveals that just Sh129.2 billion ($1.09bn) has been released to implement the declaration.

Dr George Manful, an international consultant tasked with the review of the Nairobi Summit, said the total pledges were Sh6.45 trillion ($50bn). 

He said the Nairobi Declaration got Sh3.35 trillion ($26b) in commitments from global partners, but pledges on the sidelines increased the amount to nearly Sh6.45 trillion.

Dr Manful said his initial findings show that only Sh129.2 million of the pledged funds have been released. This has sparked a debate if the Nairobi Summit was overambitious.

“After reviewing the literature, some pledges were made at side events and other forums. When put together, this sums up to almost $50 billion pledged to support the implementation of the first ACS,” Dr Manful said.

The Nairobi Declaration’s financial commitments came from various development partners, including the European Union, the UAE, the US government, multilateral development banks, philanthropic foundations and the private sector. The money was designated to help Africa with renewable energy and climate adaptation.

The findings reveal that most partner pledges and operational support were channeled to mitigation, while adaptation, resilience financing and loss and damage solutions remained under-resourced.

“For the Second Climate Summit, a clear rebalance mandate is required. It is necessary to set a continental benchmark,” Dr Manful said.

The IMF provided most of the financing to implement the first summit. The institution channelled $524 towards financing architecture and the cost of capital reforms.

Given the little progress on mobilising resources to implement the outcomes, the stakeholders have reviewed the timelines for holding the summit as earlier declared in the Nairobi declaration.

The summits will now be held every three years as opposed to the earlier declaration, which was to have an event as biennial. Stakeholders attribute this to the high cost of hosting the events and to allow time for stocktaking.

“We are changing the summits from two to three years because the timelines are unsustainable. It is costly. Two years does not give us sufficient time to do a stock take and assess the implementation,” Ethiopia’s director for Sustainable Environment and Blue Economy, Harsen Nyambe, said.

Dr Pacifica Ogola, the Director of Climate Change Programs Coordination in Kenya’s Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, said Africa Climate Summits were started to have the Heads of State talk amongst themselves and give political direction that continental climate negotiators were lacking.