By Aishwarya Bajpai
BAKU, Nov 14 2024 – “Though I come from a ‘no worries’ island, climate change is deeply worrisome for us,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told IPS in an exclusive interview at COP29 currently underway in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Asked how his country was recovering from Hurricane Beryl, Mitchell said the island in the last 24 hours “experienced flash flooding and landslides… So, apart from Hurricane Beryl, we are also dealing with other climate catastrophes.”

However, despite the challenges, the people of Grenada remain hardy.

“We (the people of Grenada) are resilient people. But we will shift the mindset of the people to a long-term perspective, to adapt to protection and sustainability,” Mitchell says. “We (SIDS) are at the frontline of the climatic crisis. It is not easy—we face disruption, loss of livelihoods, damage to property, and loss of lives.”

His country Grenada—a tiny island nation in the Caribbean Sea—faces heightened vulnerability to climate change, and has seen increased frequency of cyclones, heavy rainfall, landslides, forest fires, crop losses, and water shortages.

“It is my first COP, and I have come here to show the world that we need to be serious about transforming the world and protecting the climate.”

Mitchell determination to ensure the best deal for his island country is evident when asked about the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) which has been touted as a game-changing tool expected to save up to USD 250 billion, he responded saying “In the Caribbean Islands, carbon emissions are nonexistent. We have held our end of the bargain—all Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have.”

However, there was more to climate change than emissions, which Mitchell believes are central to the negotiations. He would like to see more benefits to ordinary people affected by climate change.

“Financing should be direct and transparent and should be to the farmers and fishing communities that are suffering the most.”

He said it was disheartening to tell 16- to 17-year-olds the global average temperature increases by 1.5 degrees.

He sighed then continued, “We need to acknowledge that we are falling short of the required standards. To address this, we must focus on climate financing to support mitigation, adaptation, and resource stability. Our goal is sustainable, renewable, and secure energy for the future. We’re prepared to make this transition, but it requires financial backing and strong partnerships to make it possible.”

When asked about his expectations of COP29? He asserted, “It is one planet, one globe. While our carbon emissions are none, we are the most vulnerable.”

He then threw down the gauntlet to the rich countries.

“At COP 29, if the developed world is serious about tackling the climate crisis, they have to take steps to curb carbon emissions and they can finance it. There is no justification for carbon subsidies. There is no justification for not transitioning to renewable energy nor for not financing us to ensure adaptation to the climate crisis.”

Mitchell demands that at COP29 climate finances are rationalized.

“At COP29, we must streamline the climate finances for SIDS, especially by making the processes easier and simpler, without their control. For example, Loss and Damage Funds should go to SIDS for actual loss and damage experienced by these islands,” he says.

The Prime Minister is adamant—the unnecessary bureaucracy in accessing funds is unacceptable.

“We shouldn’t need to create ‘projects’ to secure funding to rebuild schools washed away by floods or to compensate farmers whose crops are destroyed. We are already doing a lot in building financial resilience—we can only go so far!”

Again, referring to his country and the current crisis with flooding and landslides, he says, “we are asking for very concrete steps at COP 29.”

His message is straightforward.

“I will use the famous American saying, ‘Show me the money!’… Put simply, when you have a climate calamity of ‘X’ magnitude, you get it billed. And that bill should be allowed to respond to the direct needs of the citizens without having to pay it back, without charging the interest on it, and without being able to go to the (global institutions) to access it. That’s the kind of manuscript of simple financing we need.”

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By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2024 – As winter approaches, the ongoing airstrikes and bombardments on Lebanon has threatened the lives and livelihoods of civilians across the country and neighboring regions, which has resulted in skyrocketing death tolls and levels of displacement. Since hostilities escalated in September, Lebanon has seen the destruction of a significant amount of critical infrastructure, including historical sites that are integral to Lebanese history.

Over the course of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, airstrikes from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have not spared civilians. Repeated airstrikes in the capital city of Beirut have caused widespread fear among civilians that Hezbollah officials are hiding among them, opening them up to further attacks.

A civilian watch group in Beirut examines neighborhood demographics to ensure that no Hezbollah members are among them. “The circumstances require our patrols to be more attuned than ever. There is a big fear of Hezbollah members coming and hiding in some apartments, in some houses and we’re trying to be available at any time [residents] ask us to check any suspicious activity,” says Nadim Gemayel, a member of the Lebanese parliament and founder of the neighborhood watch program.

According to the latest report conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), the first seven days of November saw over 214 civilian deaths from Israeli attacks. In the same reporting period, the IDF had attacked 3 healthcare facilities, leading to 2 deaths and 7 injuries among healthcare workers.

On November 11, the IDF conducted a raid on Saksakiyeh in the Sidon district of southern Lebanon which killed a total of 54 people. On the same day, another Israeli missile hit a residential building in Ain Yaaqoub, a town located in the far north of Lebanon. According to a November 13 post shared to X (formerly Twitter) by the Lebanese Health Ministry, the total death toll in Lebanon since last year has reached approximately 3,365 civilians.

High levels of displacement only put more pressure on humanitarian efforts, in what has become a crisis. According to a report conducted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), roughly 473,000 people residing in Lebanon have fled to Syria since the escalation of hostilities in September. It is added that approximately 500 to 600 refugees on average cross Lebanon’s borders daily.

Evacuation orders are frequent throughout all districts of Lebanon. When asked about new forced displacement orders and bombardments, then-Israeli defense minister Israel Katz told reporters, “We will make no ceasefires, we will not take our foot off the pedal, and we will not allow any arrangement that does not include the achievement of our war objectives. We will continue to strike Hezbollah everywhere.”

According to a study conducted by AMEL Association International, a Lebanese non-profit organization that aims to support vulnerable communities in Lebanon, over 1.2 million Lebanese civilians are displaced, with 193,000 residing in overcrowded displacement shelters. These shelters are situated on mountainous land and lack heating infrastructures, making living conditions particularly harsh during this period.

“We have entered the winter and are stripped of necessities to protect ourselves from the cold and storms. The first rain that hit Lebanon a few days ago is one of the calamities that awaits us, including stronger storms and heavy snow,” says Saeda Abdallah, a resident of a shelter in eastern Lebanon.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has condemned the IDF’s attacks on Lebanese heritage sites. The ancient city of Tyre was just one of the many culturally and historically important sites that was targeted by IDF bombardment. Tyre, which UNESCO recognized as a World Heritage Site in 1984, is known as one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises in the world, and is home to the Tyre Hippodrome, an ancient arena that hosted chariot races.

“The Tyre bombing is something that has really moved all the people, because Tyre is a concept, a symbol, a World Heritage Site,” said Helene Sader, a professor at the American University of Beirut, in an interview for New Line Magazine.

Beginning on October 23, Israeli missiles ravaged Tyre and destroyed significant civilian infrastructures. Historians and UNESCO personnel fear that delicate historical sites may have sustained significant levels of foundational damage.

“We know almost nothing from an archaeological point of view from these areas, and the bombings could have destroyed precious evidence in the form of ancient sites,” said Francisco Nunez, a professor of Mediterranean archaeology at the University of Warsaw.

The ancient town of Mhaibib has been demolished from Israeli bombardment. Situated on the border of northern Lebanon, Mhaibib is known for housing the shrine to Benjamin, an Islamic prophet. This site is considered to be extremely sacred and culturally significant. The statue and shrine has sustained considerable damage from Israeli airstrikes and as of late October, it is unknown if the shrine still stands.

Graham Philip, a professor of archaeology at Durham University, opines that cultural heritage sites in Lebanon are of great importance to Lebanon’s cultural identity and history, almost akin to “the soul of a population”. “Imagine how people would feel in Britain if the Tower of London or Stonehenge were destroyed. It’s part of their identity,” he said.

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By Chikako Baba, Rahul Giri and Krishna Srinivasan
BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 14 2024 – The Asia-Pacific region prospered by becoming the source of more than half of global factory output, but another transformation to higher-productivity services has the potential to further support growth.

Employment and production typically move from agriculture to manufacturing to services, as part of natural progression that comes with rising income. Today, many Asian countries—including China, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand—are highly industrialized. If history is a guide, industry’s share of production will shrink as more activity passes to services.

Indeed, the growth of services has already drawn about half of the region’s workers into that sector, up from just 22 percent in 1990, as hundreds of millions moved from farms and factories. This shift is likely to accelerate with further expansion of international trade in modern services such as finance, information, and communication technology, as well as business outsourcing (for example, as already done in India and the Philippines).

By contrast, traditional services—for example, tourism or distribution services—have lower productivity and contribute less to economic growth.

Policymakers should embrace this shift to modern services because they have higher productivity, as we show in an analytical note accompanying our October 2024 Asia-Pacific Regional Economic Outlook. Transitioning to a more services-led economy comes with greater economic growth opportunities, provided the right policies are in place.

Productivity is an important variable when considering which sectors can best deliver growth in coming years. Manufacturing productivity in Asia is already close to the level of global leaders, so further improvement offers only limited scope to boost productivity and growth.

By contrast, services in Asia don’t enjoy the same efficiency advantage, so the region’s economies have more to gain by catching up with countries that have the most efficient services sectors.

In addition, in several services sectors like finance and business services, productivity is higher than in manufacturing, which means greater contributions to growth. For example, Asia’s labor productivity in financial services is four times higher than in manufacturing, and it’s twice as high in business services, our new analysis shows.

Even so, countries need to have the right conditions in place to benefit from services. Manufacturing benefited from low trade costs and greater global integration, but services sectors are relatively protected in Asia, which can hamper progress.

Just like Asia’s higher tariffs on agriculture, which average 12 percent versus 7.5 percent globally, foreign companies that hope to enter the services sector face various restrictions. These include outright bans, approval requirements, local presence, and higher tax rates.

Policymakers should also recognize that workers leaving agriculture and manufacturing need the skills to find good jobs in services. With waves of new digital technologies replacing some jobs like clerical support, policies should ensure widespread internet and technology access, and introduce education and training to develop a digitally skilled workforce capable of leveraging artificial intelligence.

With growth projected to slow in many Asian countries due to rapid aging, boosting productivity by nurturing productive services is a key to Asia’s future success.

This IMF blog is based on an analytical note, “Asia-Pacific’s Structural Transformation: The Past and Prospects,” included in the October 2024 Asia-Pacific Regional Economic Outlook.

Source: IMF BLOG

Chikako Baba, Rahul Giri & Krishna Srinivasan, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

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By Joyce Chimbi
BAKU, Nov 14 2024 – Three days into the landmark COP29 conference, the co-chairs of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) have arrived at a workable basis for discussion on the summit’s top priority goal—a new climate finance goal. The COP29 Presidency says the draft will, moving forward, “guide conversations around potential landing zones and help identify concerns.”

The NCQG is a new global climate finance goal that the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) shall set from a floor of USD 100 billion per year, prior to 2025. Parties have welcomed the decision, edging the summit closer to setting ambitious goals. 

“This is a significant step but there are still many options to be resolved. We now want to hear everyone’s views and we will create spaces for them to provide their inputs throughout COP29. But the parties must remember that the clock is ticking and we only have 10 days left,” COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev commented about the draft.

Mambagri Ouoba, Party in the Burkina Faso country delegation, has expressed his optimism that, at last, this COP will chart a sustainable financial path to finance effective, efficient and sustainable climate action to push back on the climate onslaught. Stressing that vulnerable, high-risk and poor countries in the Global South are in need of substantial financial and technical support to build resilience.

“Delegates, Parties, Observers and people from indigenous and other vulnerable communities are following discussions very closely and any progress, such as this, is very much welcome. Any decision or outcome made here at Baku must reflect the wishes and aspirations of all of us in every corner of the world. It is our collective responsibility to build resilience against climate change,” Ouoba told IPS.

Simon Philbert Kimaro, Party in the Tanzania delegation, told IPS that it is important to set binding financial goals “as pledges do not work very well. Commitments must be binding so that nations and other relevant stakeholders can be held into account. COP28 was historic as it very quickly arrived at an agreement on the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund but we expected much more progress than what has been achieved over the last year. Nevertheless, we are hopeful, as there has been some positive progress in the last few days of COP29.”

The loss and damage fund was established to bring finance to millions of people in developing countries on the frontlines of the devastating climate onslaught. As of September 2024, a total of USD 702 million has been pledged to the Fund from 23 contributors. Delegates from the Global South say this is far from enough to meet the climate challenge.

In Baku, the loss and damage issue appears to be a key priority in the COP29 Presidency’s plan to enhance ambition and enable action. The Presidency has pushed for progress and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage is now ready to accept contributions after the signing of key documents.

The Fund will serve as a lifeline by providing critical and urgent support for those impacted by the devastating consequences of climate change. With this important milestone reached, the Fund is now expected to start financing projects in 2025.

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Climate change exacerbates the difficulties already faced by indigenous communities, multiplying their vulnerabilities from political and economic marginalization and loss of land and natural resources. The ongoing climatic carnage is displacing indigenous communities at seven times the rate of the global population. Speaking on the sidelines of COP29, Charles Lokai Lonyamakan from the Youth Initiative […]

By Tanka Dhakal
BAKU, Nov 14 2024 – Climate change and its impact on public health hasn’t made the top of the agenda even at a forum like the UN Climate Conference, but is should, say the health community.

Understanding the gap, more than 100 organizations from across the international health and climate community came together as the Global Climate and Health Alliance and have called wealthy countries to protect people’s health by committing to provide climate finance in the order of a trillion dollars annually, in addition to global action with leadership from the highest emitting countries to end the fossil fuel era.

Alliance endorsed nine recommendations for the summit through a policy brief—‘A COP29 for People and Planet’ which includes financing to community engagement.

In an interview with Dr. Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance IPS asked about the recommendations and why they were necessary.

Dr. Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance.

IPS: How and why the international health and climate community came together—why was it necessary, right before COP29?

Miller: For many years, the UN climate negotiations have been going on. For many years, health was not a part of the conversation. And in fact, the Global Climate and Health Alliance was established because a handful of health organizations felt like this is an important health issue, and we need to get health into that conversation, and we’re not seeing it there. Over the years, more and more health organizations have really begun to understand the threat that climate change poses to people’s health. I think a big contributing factor as well is that we are now seeing those impacts of climate change in real time in communities all over the world—every country, every region, is seeing some combination of extreme weather events.

This is directly impacting the communities that we serve, and we have to raise the alarm bell and make sure that we’re pushing for those solutions that are going to protect people’s health. The report, specifically the policy recommendations, is really an attempt to take what we’re seeing from the health perspective, the concerns that we have. About the threat that this poses for people’s health and the reality of the impacts on people’s health, and somewhat translate that into terms that make sense for negotiators to pick that up, understand it, and use it in the context of those actual decision-making processes in the climate talks.

IPS: Wealth is concentrated on one side of the world or one section of the community, but burden—especially public health burden—is on marginalized communities who don’t have access to basic resources. Is there any way that gap will be narrowed in the near future?

Miller: This is such a critically important issue. And unfortunately, we’re seeing some real extremes of wealth disparity—ironically, in countries that have huge wealth disparity within the country, everyone is less healthy than they would be if there was less health disparity. If people were more equal, that would be healthier for everyone. But the reality is, many people, as you say, don’t have the resources to access the basic necessities of life. Healthy food, clean water, electricity of any kind, but particularly clean energy, even access to education, access to basic health care—all of those things are really vital to growing up healthy and to living a healthy life. And the thing that is so clear is that access to those basic necessities early in life makes a tremendous difference in being able to grow up healthy, resilient, and productive.

It’s a huge impact on the individual that’s growing up without those resources—it’s also an impact on society. So, a society that has people that grow up with enough resources to be resilient, healthy, and well educated is a healthier society. And I would argue that that extends not only within a community or even a country but also internationally. So, if we have huge disparities internationally, that’s also kind of a drain on the world, a challenge for the world as a whole. It leads to conflict, it leads to friction, and it leads to difficulty making decisions to tackle climate change together. I would argue that it’s really in the best interest of wealthy countries to make those investments to help the lowest-income, vulnerable countries have the resource they need to address those basic necessities. I think it’s fundamental. It’s the right thing to do.

I think for so many reasons, it’s important that the wealthy countries do step up and provide this kind of resources.

IPS: While talking about the resources, wealthy countries are already far behind on their climate finance commitment. Do you think they will consider financing to protect people’s health?

Miller: This is a major focus of this year’s climate negotiations. In fact, on the table is a major discussion about a new pot of financing for climate change, and I don’t think we know the answer yet as to how that’s going to come out.

It often gets talked about as we can’t economically afford to put in that money. I think a key question is, what is the cost of inaction? If we fail to act, we’re already seeing. The cost of failing to act on climate change is immense. The cost of failing to enable countries to be better, prepared to be better, to have their systems, their water and sanitation systems be stronger, their hospitals be more prepared, etc. The costs are just staggering. So, when we’re talking about, can we afford to put the money into climate action, I think we also need to ask the question, can we afford not to? I think the answer is no. And then the last thing that I’ll say about this is, and this is also important, we are currently subsidizing fossil fuels more than a trillion a year in direct public subsidies. So that’s public money going into supporting the production and use of fossil fuels, and fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change.

So again, when we’re talking about, can we afford to or are we prepared to invest in climate action and put money into a Climate Fund? We need to ask ourselves the question. What is the cost of not doing so? And then where else is public money going that could be going into moving us in the right direction, towards clean energy, towards climate resilience?

IPS: You talked about the extreme weather events. In recent years, extreme events contributed by climate change are causing destruction en masse; often its monetary losses will be counted but its public health impact is still to be discussed. How do you see climate and health discussion moving forward especially regarding financing?

Miller: I don’t think it happens by itself. In my own country, the US, we are seeing climate-exacerbated disaster, and yet people not accepting the role of climate change in that and not accepting that the health impacts, the dislocation, and the trauma that they’re experiencing were caused by climate change.

It’s not necessarily going to happen just by itself, in in other countries as well. People may be feeling the impacts, but not connecting the dots, and not because of disinformation, not recognizing.

I do think that it’s important for those who know about those connections—the scientists, the advocates, the health professionals who are looking at these issues, the academic departments—to talk about it and articulate what those connections are.

But then I do think that each time one of those extreme weather events does create the opportunity for that conversation to happen, and we need to step up to those opportunities.

And I think that can make a really big difference in changing the nature of the conversation and opening-up possibility for a deeper conversation about what we need to do about this.

IPS: Let’s talk about the report. It talks about healthy climate action for most affected communities. Can you explain it for our audience and what would be the role of the community?

Miller: It’s so often the case that decisions get made without consulting communities affected by those decisions. There can be very good will that is, and good intentions behind that, and yet the results are not going to be as good if you’re not working with the people affected by the issue. The thing that community members know that nobody else knows in the way that they know it is their lived experience of what’s going on in their community, their resources in terms of their own knowledge, their own community relationships, their own resilience, their own techniques. There may be techniques that they know for growing food and their ecosystem.

There may be knowledge you know for forced communities, knowledge that they have of the force that they live in. There is very deep knowledge that communities have about their circumstances, their context, and their needs and what they can bring in terms of solutions, so effectively working with communities means really involving them in the conversation from the get-go when designing programs and projects and all of that sort of thing. And I think when it comes even to financing, thinking about how finance for Climate Solutions reaches that community level.

I think another thing that’s really important to recognize is that climate change puts a huge strain on all of us. It’s a huge psychological strain just to live in the climate era. Enabling communities to come together and be a part of the solution helps to heal that burden.

IPS: You touched on mental health. The report also talks about mental health and wellbeing outcomes—we are seeing people struggling with climate-related post- and pre-event psychological burden in different forms. How do you see this dimension moving forward?

Miller: That is one area where I’ve definitely seen significant progress in the last several years. I think I’ve seen significant progress in increasingly recognizing the health impacts of climate change and the health threat that climate change poses, and then within that, significant progress in beginning to recognize and acknowledge and understand the mental health dimensions of this. There’s a long way to go, but it is a part of the conversation, and it’s an important one.

There are mental health impacts before or after an extreme weather event, and that can show up as kind of anxiety and stress, a variety of things. People who go through major extreme weather events, like the post-traumatic stress of having experienced that and having gone through it, not knowing if it might happen again or when it might happen again.

There’s also the sense of losing one’s world, losing the world that one grew up in, losing the environment that one, the world that one grew up in and seeing those things kind of slip away—this sort of a cultural, ecological and cultural dimension to that. And if you know, failing to acknowledge that mental health dimension both leaves people suffering and also leaves people sort of disempowered.

I think community is important in response to those kinds of mental health challenges—the kind of recognition that there are actions that one can take and ways that one can come together. And some of those actions may be kind of the direct actions of sustainability, working to live a more sustainable lifestyle. I think even, maybe even more important than that, are actions of coming together with the community to influence the kinds of decisions that get made, to call for the kinds of policies that will turn the needle on climate change, to have a voice in the larger conversation. I think that can be even more powerful.

IPS: Do you have anything to add that we may have missed or you wanted to add?

Miller: I think the one thing that I would add is that, right now, every government that’s part of the Paris Agreement is in the process of drafting new national climate commitments.

It’s an important opportunity, not just at the international level, and as at these big international climate talks, but at home, in every single country, for people to call on their governments to make commitments that are aligned with protecting their health from climate change.

Also, I think it’s important to continue to focus on what we can do. The headwinds can feel pretty strong. Addressing climate change will be something that we’re doing for the rest of our lives, not just for the rest of my life—anybody alive today will be dealing with this issue for the rest of our lives. So, we need to maintain our stamina around it and know that this is a long-term commitment and know that it’s worth it.

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By Dr Githinji Gitahi
Nov 14 2024 – Global warming is no longer just an issue for the environment but a crisis of life itself. Yet, African governments’ climate action strategies, specifically those submitted under the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), remain disproportionately focused on emission reductions—an approach that fails to address the most pressing health needs of African communities. For many Africans, it’s hard to explain why their leaders prioritize reducing emissions, which are rather low and insignificant when the immediate threat of climate change is not their carbon footprint but their vulnerability to its effects.

Consider the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). With a per capita carbon emission of just 0.04 metric tons, it would take an average Congolese citizen over 400 years to match the emissions of a citizen in a high-income country like the U.S., Canada, or Australia. However, DRC’s NDC includes an unconditional commitment to reduce emissions by 2%, with a conditional target of 21% by 2030. This ambitious reduction, aimed at emissions that are already minuscule, would come at a cost of $25.6 billion for mitigation compared to the $23 billion allocated for adaptation actions.

This isn’t an argument against the DRC’s commitment, but an example of the absurdity that is replicated across most of the African climate action strategies as stated in their NDCs. Across the continent, mitigation costs consistently overshadow adaptation investments, even though Africa’s contribution to global emissions is minimal. What impact would DRC’s 21% reduction from 0.04 to 0.0316 metric tons per capita emissions have on the global climate at a cost of $25.6 billion?

Ethiopia provides another example. With per capita emissions of 0.2 metric tons, Ethiopia aims to cut emissions by 68.8% by 2030. However, of its $316 billion climate action budget, $275.5 billion is dedicated to mitigation, while only $40.5 billion is allocated to adaptation. This imbalance overlooks Ethiopia’s pressing need for climate resilient infrastructure in health, water, and sanitation to protect millions from climate-induced floods and droughts.

The story continues in Malawi, where per capita emissions are only 0.1 metric tons. Malawi’s NDC targets a 6% unconditional reduction and a 51% conditional reduction by 2040, with $41.8 billion allocated for mitigation but only $4.5 billion for adaptation. This focus on mitigation underfunds Malawi’s immediate vulnerabilities, such as water scarcity, food insecurity, and a fragile agricultural sector.

Zimbabwe and Uganda follow similar patterns. Zimbabwe, with per capita emissions of 0.9 metric tons, aims to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030, budgeting $4.83 billion for mitigation compared to just $2.35 billion for adaptation. Uganda, with emissions at 0.1 metric tons per capita, commits to a 24.7% reduction by 2030, with $16.7 billion allocated for mitigation and $11.4 billion for adaptation, despite recurring droughts that jeopardise agriculture and health systems.

A more people-centered approach would give precedence to climate-resilient crops, effective water management, and adaptable healthcare systems that directly address the immediate needs of vulnerable populations.

This fixation on mitigation in countries with negligible emissions reveals what I call “distributed carbon guilt”—a shared sense of responsibility for a problem these countries did not create. African nations seem trapped in a “copy-paste” climate agenda that mirrors the priorities of high-emission countries rather than building strategies rooted in local needs.

It’s time for African leaders to rethink their climate strategies and make a decisive shift away from carbon metrics toward a people-centred approach. This human life crisis demands a bottom-up strategy focused on protecting lives and livelihoods, prioritising the safety and resilience of vulnerable communities facing growing health risks, water and food scarcity, and the loss of jobs and incomes.

Achieving this scale of change requires harnessing the power of citizen engagement to build a groundswell of advocacy that places people at the heart of climate negotiations. Empowered African voices—from grassroots activists to government representatives—are essential in holding wealthier nations accountable, demanding they honour their commitments for a just energy transition and provide the financial and technological support necessary to safeguard lives and strengthen the resilience of African communities.

The Pathway to Resilience

Climate adaptation and mitigation are not opposing approaches but mutually reinforcing strategies to tackle climate change and its impacts.  Each should be applied based on the specific needs of communities. For example, investing in adaptation in Africa provides immediate protection and reduces future risks, avoiding the escalating costs of inaction. According to the Global Commission on Adaptation, an investment of $1.8 trillion in areas like early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, and water resources could yield $7.1 trillion in benefits. If African farmers adopted solar-powered irrigation, resilient crop varieties, and weather alert systems, global agricultural yields could avoid a 30% decline by 2050. Clearly, investing in adaptation delivers significant co-benefits for both resilience and mitigation.

African governments should therefore refocus on five key areas: strengthening climate-resilient health systems, offering reliable, safe water and sanitation services, supporting sustainable agriculture, mitigation, especially where there are direct co-benefits and implementing social protection programmes. Climate-resilient health systems are vital to managing climate-driven pressures, including rising disease burdens from malaria, dengue, and respiratory illnesses linked to pollution and extreme temperatures. They are also critical for responding to health impacts from extreme weather events like droughts and floods.

Reliable water and sanitation infrastructure that can withstand prolonged droughts and unpredictable rainfall is essential for tackling Africa’s growing water scarcity. This is directly linked to health, as failing and overwhelmed sanitation systems increase the risk of diseases like cholera.

In agriculture, climate-smart practices—such as resilient crop varieties, agroforestry, improved irrigation, and early warning systems—are crucial for food security. Meanwhile, government-led people-centric social protection programmes offer a safety net for communities facing the economic impacts of climate shocks.

These priorities will form a central part of discussions at next year’s Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC25) in Kigali, where African leaders will host global health and development stakeholders to exchange best practices and innovative solutions for tackling these urgent challenges.

Calling for Accountability from High-Income Countries

Based on the widely accepted principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,’ Africa should not bear this financial burden of adaptation alone. High-income countries, whose emissions have driven this crisis, have a moral obligation to compensate for the damage affecting developing nations. The Climate Convention mandates developed countries to provide this support, but funding is still not flowing at the scale or speed required. At COP29 in Baku, African leaders must stand united in demanding substantial, immediate financial support from wealthier nations to fund adaptation efforts across the continent as the world jointly works to slow down the global warming catastrophe.

As the next round of NDCs is due in early 2025, African policymakers must shift the focus to address their countries’ most pressing priorities.  Adaptation should be the primary consideration, guided by available data that highlights Africa’s urgent need for resilience. Mitigation should be pursued selectively where it offers direct benefits, such as reducing indoor air pollution. Meanwhile, G20 countries, especially the highest emitters, must lead on global mitigation efforts. Continuing to prioritize emission reductions in low-emission African nations is effectively adopting someone else’s agenda and diverts attention from Africa’s critical needs.

Africa’s climate commitments must prioritize lives, livelihoods, and resilience. The continent’s leaders must champion a strategy that safeguards its people, builds robust systems, and prepares for the climate impacts already upon us. In this crisis of life, Africa needs a climate action strategy centered on people—not carbon.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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