We should all be level-headed on climate policies

President William Ruto arrives at KICC for Africa Climate Summit in an electric car. [Silas Otieno, Standard]

Most observers would agree that the just-concluded African Climate Summit in Nairobi was a success – at least as far as summitry goes.

President William Ruto hosted our region and the world and in so doing established our position as a serious stakeholder in the global discourse on climate change and potential solutions.

This was a much-needed intervention, since for a long time our region has been relegated to the status of pitiable victims of climate change with little contribution in terms of ideas about how to address the problem.

That said, we should be careful to not let the warm glow from the summit get into our heads. First, recent history suggests the financial commitments from various stakeholders to help African countries address climate change – from damage and loss, to mitigation and transition – will not materialise.

Second, what is likely to happen is that high-income countries will throw crumbs at African governments and NGOs to keep them talking at summits and workshops and distracted from the real distributive issues related to climate change.

Notice that the US and the UK availed 30 million dollars and 40 million pounds, respectively, for the entire continent. These are not figures worthy of serious counterparts.

Third, we should be wary of being hoodwink with all the climate-related financial products coming online. It would be tragic if after decades of squandering our natural resources in ways that only benefitted foreigners, we ended up doing the same with our pristine environment. At a minimum, African governments should insist on setting up African exchanges run by African entities to manage the coming financialisation of environmental conservation.

More broadly, our governments must understand that poverty is not a viable climate strategy. We must develop as quickly as we can with the cheapest possible energy sources.

That means having an all-of-the-above approach to energy access; and avoiding the temptation to ape high-income country policies like carbon taxes.

Wealthy countries that do not want us to use cheap available energy sources for the sake of saving the planet should pay us to access cleaner alternatives.

Otherwise, they should shut up and focus on reducing their own emissions and making amends for their historical levels of pollution. We must never forget that we are trying to save the planet for people. This means protecting livelihoods should be priority number one.

The writer is an Associate Professor at Georgetown University