Europe’s leaders were criticised recently for not pitching up for a climate adaptation summit which took place in Rotterdam earlier this month.
Only the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, was there to meet with the three African leaders who flew to the Netherlands for the Africa Adaptation Summit.
Wealthier countries, predominantly in the global north, have consistently broken promises regarding pledged financial support poorer countries in boosting climate resilience.
President Macky Sall of Senegal, speaking to Climate Change News, said: “I cannot help but note, with some bitterness, the absence of leaders from the industrial world. I think if we made the effort to leave Africa to come to Rotterdam, it would be easier for the Europeans and others to be here.”
Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo associated himself “wholly with the sentiments of president Macky Sall about the failure of certain vested interests to be present with us at this meeting” and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Felix Tshisekedi said “it is my turn to also deplore the absence of leaders of industrialised nations”.
Ethiopia’s president Sahle-Work Zewde, speaking at the conference virtually, echoed their criticisms, adding that “sometimes, we should not appear to be talking to each other while those who should be with us are not present”.
UN deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed said the meeting was “lop-sided” and “a bird only flies on two wings”. She praised African leaders for showing up, adding “it’s not because (they) don’t have anything important to do back at home”.
In 2009, wealthy countries promised to deliver $100 billion (R1.8 trillion) a year to developing countries in climate finance by 2020. They fell $17bn short of this target in 2020 and have yet to meet it, with the US responsible for most of the shortfall.
At the meeting in Rotterdam, Macky Sall linked this failure on finance to the viability and fairness of African emissions reduction measures. Senegal is promoting offshore oil and gas exploration while the DRC is auctioning off oil concessions in rainforests and peatlands.
Sall said that when countries of Africa were asked to renounce polluting developments to deal with the state of emergency on the planet, “it is only fair that, as a counterpart, the cost of adaptation to this should be shared equitably”.
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