African CSO Climate demands for the EU-Africa Summit

Introduction

The EU-Africa Summits have taken place for a couple of years now. The 4th EU-Africa Summit will take place in Brussels on 2-3 April 2014. It will bring together African and EU leaders, as well as the leaders of EU and African Union institutions.

The theme of the meeting is “Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace” and the topics of discussion range from peace, security, investments, climate change and migration. It is a perfect environment to bring in issues that affect Africa with a razor sharp analysis and influence Africa leaders in their engagement at this summit especially on climate change.

In light of the EU 2030 climate change and energy policies, climate change is one of the issues African leadership can engage with the EU leadership. Climate change is impacting Africa more and more and any deal that is less ambitious will complicate the effects even further.

Prosperity Discussions

There is going to be discussions on prosperity and inclusive growth. This should be a perfect entry point for climate change influence. Prosperity is also key for the two continents. Both Africa and Europe need sustainable and inclusive growth to ensure their socio-economic development and consolidate the recovery from the economic and financial crisis.

It will be important to highlight that EU pursues a development agenda that is sustainable and also provides support to countries in Africa whose path to development is challenged by the impacts of climate change manifested by disasters such as like droughts, flooding and the spread of diseases and destruction of infrastructure.

It is on this front that the 2030 package of the EU on climate change and energy is seen to be unambitious and retrogressive in securing and protecting the future and present life of Africa which is one of the continents heavily affected by climate change but did not contribute much to cause it.

EU Climate Change Policies

The latest climate change policies that EU is debating are the 2030 package which is in many ways inadequate. The poorest and most vulnerable people living in developing countries, especially women, have contributed close to nothing to causing climate change, yet they are the ones to suffer first and foremost. Latest science and our observations on the ground have confirmed that the impact of climate change in developing countries is indeed devastating.

Extreme weather events are increasing in strength and frequency, exacerbating hunger, water stress and misery.

The meeting is ahead of the UN Climate Leaders’ Summit in New York in September, where countries are expected to demonstrate high ambition in their actions on climate change. There is expectations that the EU will raise the expectations for a new global deal in 2015, and lead the way to staying below 2oC of global warming.

Europe has in the past often been an ally of developing countries when it comes to advancing the international climate change agenda. This year, we trust in the leaders to revive this alliance and to lead the EU to adopt important building blocks for the international negotiations in four areas namely:

1) Increasing GHG emission reductions (2030 package)

2) Climate Finance

3) Loss and Damage

4) Equity and justice

(1)       Increasing GHG emission reductions (2030 package)

The EU is preparing its climate change objectives for 2030. It is of utmost importance that the European Council adopts ambitious binding objectives for GHG reductions, for renewables and for energy efficiency. Only these three objectives together can ensure the necessary speedy transition to a truly low-carbon EU on its way to completely de-carbonize by mid-century.

We welcome the intention of the Hellenic presidency to put this topic high on the agenda. However, the current proposal for only one truly binding GHG emissions target with only 40% reductions is out of touch with what is required. In line with science and equity principles, we recommend that the EU aims for at least 55% domestic emission reductions, supplemented by ambitious renewables and energy efficiency targets in its European Council conclusions in spring.

(2) Climate finance

During the climate negotiations in 2009 in Copenhagen, developed countries promised to provide annually USD 100 billion for additional financing of adaptation and mitigation in developing countries by 2020. The fast-start financing period 2010-2012 has shown that most of these funds were not additional but part of regular ODA which declined instead of increased in line with the EU promise to reach 0,7% of its GDP for Official Development Assistance. We urge the leaders to adopt a detailed and concrete strategy on how to provide additional climate funds while on top increasing the general ODA to 0,7%.

The strategy should be endorsed by conclusions of the Economic and Finance Council in June. It should also be part of the EU’s submission to the UNFCCC due in September on how to increase long-term finance in line with last year’s COP19 decision on scaling-up climate finance.

The bulk of the funds need to be public, they should be used to capitalize the Green Climate fund with at least 50% for adaptation measures in the poorest countries have encountered difficulties finding private funding. On source of funding, in addition to national pledges and fully exploiting the potential of revenues from ETS auctioning, we would like to draw the leaders’ attention to the possibilities of tapping into innovative sources for financing such as the Financial Transaction Tax and a tax on bunker fuels.

(3) Loss and Damage (L&D)

Given the global lack of action to tackle climate change mitigation adequately, loss and damage caused by climate change is becoming a sad reality. COP19 took the important decision to establish the international mechanism on L&D. Now it is up to the presidencies to lead the EU towards active and constructive involvement in the new mechanism in order to find ways to tackle loss and damage in developing countries in a meaningful way, including through risk reduction, rehabilitation, and recourse and remedy measures. The most vulnerable people in developing countries including women need to be prioritized.

(4) Equity and justice

The UNFCCC principle of common but differentiated responsibilities requires countries to contribute to fighting global climate change and its impact in line with their historic responsibilities, financial capacities and technical capabilities. Developing countries retain the right to development and should be supported by the EU in their own low-carbon development plans.

The EU needs to recognize equity and justice as core elements of and enabling conditions for a fair global 2015 agreement in order to win the trust and support of developing countries. EU proposals for mitigation and climate finance have to be measured by the yardstick of equity and justice.

The above-mentioned four elements will be an important contribution of the EU to the success of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s summit in September 2014 in New York on the road to a Paris Agreement in 2015. The eyes of our thousands of members in Europe and in over 130 countries around the world are turned towards this important EU-African Leaders’ Summit.