African governments unanimously agree on transformational change at COP21

African governments have unanimously agreed on the continent’s ambition for transformational change at the Paris COP21 conference.

If there was one message common in the series of addresses by the different presidents at the COP 21, it was to see the wrongs meted on the continent by polluting countries corrected through a profitable climate deal for Africa.

President Boni Yayi of Benin, Cameroon’s Paul Biya and Nigeria’s Mohamadou Bouharai all agreed on the need for substantial financial support to help the people who are bearing the brunt of a warming planet especially in Sahel Africa cope with hardship.

As negotiations on a new deal to tackle climate change in Paris rolls on, millions of Africans are going hungry due to the combined impacts of a strong erratic weather pattern and longer-term climate shifts, with drought and floods affecting Ethiopia, Benin,Cameroon and Zimbabwe, to name but a few places, they pointed out.

In West Africa, creeping deserts and rising seas are increasingly driving people from their homes to migrate to other parts of the politically volatile region – and in some cases north towards Europe.

Yet the continent lack the financial wherewithal to help these vulnerable communities cope with climate pressures the different country leaders who addressed the climate conference noted.

But the pleas of the different African leaders at the COP21 seem to be falling on listening ears.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim pointed out that Africa has every reason to complain and addressing their woes is doing justice to a continent with promising potentials.

“African leaders are right to say they have very little role in putting the carbon in the air that is wreaking havoc in our globe but that they suffer most from the impacts of climate change. The extreme weather events, the loss of arable land is getting worst in the continent and there is need to provide the means to address these disturbing trend,” Jim Yong said.

A recent report from the bank found that, without development that helps countries prepare for climate change, 43 million more people in sub-Saharan Africa – mostly in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Angola and Uganda – could fall into extreme poverty by 2030 due to lower crop yields, higher food prices and adverse health effects linked to climate change.

Despite these risks, funding for adaptation measures – including protecting infrastructure, growing hardier crops, building storm shelters, resettling at-risk families and issuing weather warnings – accounts for less than a fifth of total international funding for climate action.

The African Development Bank and other funding bodies however say one of the biggest challenges facing Africa is the lack of energy to drive development actions.

They think by boosting renewable energy use and energy efficiency many of the climate adaptation and mitigation issues will be addressed.

The funders consequently announced their mobilization of climate finance to drive development action in Africa pledging to convert the continent’s rich resource potential to real gains that transforms livelihood.

“Africa has rich resource potential but potentials by itself cannot empower the people until it is transformed to something beneficial. We have to make sure we light and empower Africa with renewable energy,” announced the president of the African

Development Bank at the launch of the project at Cop 21 on December 2, 2015.

 Adesina said the initiative would boost renewable energy output in Africa by nearly tenfold to 300 gigawatt (GW) by 2030.

“Africa is simply tired of being in the dark,” Adesina said at the African Pavilion at the summit in Paris for the launch of the African Renewable Energy Initiative.

The bank, which will act as a trustee of the initiative, will invest $12 billion in energy projects across the continent over the next five years, which will leverage about $40 to $50 billion from the private sector, he said.