African nations can’t ‘adapt’ to famine or floods.
Rich
countries should pay us for the climate crisis they caused
Vanessa Nakate
Tuesday 8th November 2022
37 million people are facing starvation in the Horn of Africa. Time for
wealthier countries to adopt ‘loss and damage finance’
In September, I travelled from my home
country, Uganda, to Turkana County in
Kenya, which is suffering from a historic
drought. One morning, I met a boy in a
hospital where doctors see patients with
the worst cases of severe acute
malnutrition. His family had not been able
to access the treatment he needed in
time. By the time the sun set that evening,
he had died.
The boy was one of 37 million people
facing starvation in the Horn of Africa.
After four failed rainy seasons, Kenya
faces the acute risk of widespread famine.
This suffering is set to get worse; experts
predict that drought-stricken areas in
Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia will receive
significantly below normal rainfall for the
rest of the year.
The entire continent of Africa is
responsible for less than 4% of historic
global emissions, yet African people are
bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. We
are experiencing profound damage to our
societies, our economies and most
importantly our people. The same
injustice is also crippling other lower-
income parts of the world; in Pakistan
earlier this year, extreme flooding
submerged a third of the entire country,
killing more than 1,700 people. The World
Bank estimates that the total economic
damage to Pakistan sits at over $30bn
(£26bn); reconstruction will cost another
$16bn.
Pakistan has contributed only 0.3% of
global emissions, yet, like Kenya and
Somalia, it is having to pay, literally, for
the greenhouse gases released by other
countries. What’s more, these countries
don’t have the resources to pay for the
damage being inflicted upon them. When
Germany experienced terrible flooding in
2021, the government was able to
instantly mobilise €30bn (£26bn) to pay to
rebuild the towns and infrastructure that
had been decimated by the flood. In
contrast, Pakistan has had to rely on an
UN emergency appeal that is only 34%
funded. Mozambique was forced to take
out an IMF loan to help pay for recovery
following Cyclone Idai in 2019, pushing
the country further into debt distress.
The legacy of colonial extraction and
plundering by rich countries has left
countries such as Pakistan, Kenya and
Mozambique without enough resources
to cope in the face of extreme climate
change. Without the money to recover
from extreme weather events, there is
little hope for countries like mine to
survive the next few decades.
At Cop27 this week, the countries most
vulnerable to the effects of the climate
crisis are bringing a solution to the table.
We’re asking those who have largely
caused this crisis to help pay for the
damage they have created. This is called
“loss and damage finance”, in UN
language. Already, it has dominated the
talks and kept negotiators wrangling late
into the night.
Vanuatu, a Pacific nation that is among
the most climate-vulnerable countries in
the world, first proposed such financial
support in 1991. But the issue has been
tied down in technical UN negotiations for
years. That has allowed rich countries to
delay any progress in getting money to
people who need it to recover and
rebuild. Now, the issue of loss and
damage is finally becoming unavoidable.
People across the world are starting to
understand why this is needed.
Some might say that such finance is still
unlikely amid the energy and cost of living
crises. But if we’re talking about who is to
blame, there is one culprit that stands out
– the fossil-fuel industry. A new report
from the Loss and Damage Collaboration
found that in the first half of 2022, just six
fossil fuel companies made enough
money to cover the total costs of extreme
weather and climate-related events in
developing countries around the world –
and still have nearly $70bn (£61bn) left
over in pure profit. Even the UN secretary
general has called for windfall taxes on
fossil-fuel giants to fund loss and damage
payments.
Others argue that we cannot control how
the money is actually used – that
governments who receive it may not pass
it on to the people in need and instead
spend it on their own projects. But we
know what works. A report released last
week by the Stockholm Environment
Institute found that the most effective
way of getting this money to the people
who need it is simply by giving them
money directly. Such direct transfers
could happen in the form of small and
accessible grants to communities in
urgent need.
The one thing that is still lacking is the
political will to make this happen. But as
climate disasters pile up, loss and damage
is becoming increasingly difficult to
ignore. People have described Cop27 as
the “African Cop”. It can only live up to
that name if world leaders are prepared
to actually deal with the needs of people
suffering from a crisis they have played
little role in creating. To the leaders
gathering in Sharm el-Sheikh this week, I
say: you cannot adapt to starvation. Stop
wasting time. Start getting funds to those
who need them most.
Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist,
Unicef goodwill ambassador and author of
A Bigger Picture
QUESTIONS
1) What issue is the writer
addressing? Summarise her
viewpoint.
2) What is the solution that she
offers?
3) What anecdote does the writer
use in paragraph one? Why is this
a good way to begin their
argument?
4) How does the use of statistics
help the writer to make their
point? Use specific examples to
answer the question.
5) What does she think will be the
barriers to solving the problem?