How we can fix broken global climate financing

Executive Director of Environmental Africa, David Bwakali. [Courtesy]

Imagine if you earn $100 billion (Sh14.4 trillion) yearly. You would of course, be the richest human. In 2015 during the historic Paris Agreement, rich nations pledged $100 billion annually to help developing countries limit climate change. 

Despite my prominent role in Africa’s environmental journey, as a co-founder in 2006 of the Africa Youth Initiative on Climate Change, my organisation, Environmental Africa, has never tapped into these funds. 

This $100 billion is actually supposed to galvanise the climate competency of even smaller organisations – thousands of community-based organisations across Africa. Not only are they unable to access these funds, many don’t even know such funds exist. This has to change. Those who know about the funds cannot navigate the labyrinth it takes to lay hands on the money. 

Financial pledges have now become the norm in every other climate conference. They started in earnest back in 2011 during the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) in Durban, South Africa. A major outcome of the conference was the formal launch of the Green Climate Fund to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

More than a decade and billions of additional pledges later, Africa’s climate resilience remains poor. Clearly, the global climate financing infrastructure is broken. How then can it be fixed? 

As delegates troop to Nairobi for the Africa Climate Summit next month, this is a question they must seriously deliberate. It’s a good thing the summit’s theme is, “driving green growth and climate finance solutions for Africa and the world.”

This theme should infuse deliberations with a laser focus on fixing the broken global climate financing. 

In 2011, during the Durban Climate Conference, we organised a parallel conference in Nairobi’s Korogocho. We called it Conference of the People, a play on ‘Conference of Parties’ that refers to the United Nations Conferences. 

Herein lies the secret of fixing the broken global financing infrastructure. This financing should be inclusive of the 1.4 billion Africans by being directly accountable to them. That way, they will be the ones to exert pressure, not just for pledges to be met, but also for secured funds to be used in an effective Afro-centred manner. 

-The writer is Executive Director of Environmental Africa