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By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital

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Africa Climate week kicked off with a $450 million carbon credit pledge from the United Arab Emirates on Monday as Kenyan President William Ruto urged African leaders to seize the opportunity presented by climate finance. However, several speakers see little progress being made towards filing the climate financing hole. 

An initiative to boost Africa’s carbon credit production 19-fold by 2030 drew hundreds of millions of dollars of pledges on Monday as Kenyan President William Ruto opened the continent’s first climate summit. 

In one of the most anticipated deals, the UAE committed to buying $450 million of carbon credits from the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI). 

The ACMI was launched at Egypt’s COP27 summit last year. African leaders are pushing market-based financing instruments such as carbon credits, which allow polluters to offset emissions through activities like planting trees or investing in renewable energy projects. 

Kenya’s President William Ruto during the opening ceremony of the Africa Climate Summit (ACS) 2023 at KICC in Nairobi, Kenya, Sept. 4, 2023. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi

“For a very long time we have looked at this as a problem. It is time we flipped and looked at it from the other side,” Ruto told delegates. 

“We must see in green growth not just a climate imperative but also a fountain of multi-billion-dollar economic opportunities that Africa and the world is primed to capitalize,” he said.

Several speakers at the summit, however, said they had seen little progress toward accelerating climate financing. “There hasn’t been any success for an African country in attracting climate finance,” said Bogolo Kenewendo, a United Nations climate adviser and former trade minister in Botswana. 

Many investors still saw the continent as too risky, Bogolo said. 

Kevin Kariuki, a vice president at the African Development Bank, told Reuters the deals announced on Monday were “very welcome” but did not come close to filling the climate financing hole. 

He said African states would push at the COP28 later this year for the expansion of special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund that could unlock $500 billion worth of climate finance, which could be leveraged up to five times. 

Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth of 56 countries, said the pledged funding was more than symbolic, as it showed people understood the emergency, but that current climate finance flows to Africa were still “shockingly low”. 

Climate Asset Management – a joint venture of HSBC Asset Management and Pollination, a specialist climate change investment and advisory firm – also announced a $200 million investment in projects that will produce ACMI credits. 

Britain said UK-backed projects worth 49 million pounds ($62 million) would be announced over the course of the summit, and Germany announced a 60-million euro ($65 million) debt swap with Kenya to free up money for green projects.

The Climate Policy Initiative estimates that the continent needs $277 billion annually to implement ‘nationally determined contributions’ to meet 2030 climate goals. Annual climate finance flows in Africa stand at only $30 billion for now. 

Another recent report co-authored by executive secretary at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Vera Songwe, concluded that multilateral development banks (MDBs) yearly climate finance must triple within five years, from $60 billion to $180 billion, to help developing economies globally cope with global warming. 

The African Development Bank (AfDB) estimates that loss and damage costs due to climate change in its region are between $289.2 billion to $440.5 billion and that a 1°C increase in temperature is also associated with a greater probability of conflict in the region of approximately 11%. 

The International Monetary fund also estimates that 34 of 59 developing economies most vulnerable to climate change, many of which are in Africa, are also at a high risk of fiscal crises.

A man walks past a flooded house where residents saved their lives by climbing up the stairs to the second floor, following heavy rain, in El Alamo, Spain Sept 4, 2023. REUTERS/Susana Vera

A joint statement on climate action by the President of Kenya, William Ruto, COP28 President-Designate Dr. Sultan Al Jaber and African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat: 

“Africa is a continent brimming with promise. It is blessed with abundant renewable energy potential that is waiting to be tapped. Africa’s 1.4 billion people represent 17% of the world’s population,60% of which are under the age of 25 making it the youngest population in the world. It is also the home to 5 of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world. 

“But despite accounting for less than 3% of the world’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to date and having the lowest emissions per capita of any region, Africa is also home to many of the most climate vulnerable countries. 

“We must ensure that climate finance is more available, affordable, and accessible to all developing countries, including those in Africa, and that international investment and support is massively scaled up to enable commitments to be turned into actions across the continent. 

“Furthermore, it is vital that we restore trust in the multilateral process if we are to achieve progress. Developed countries must deliver on their historical commitments, including the $100 billion of annual climate finance, doubling adaptation finance and ensuring a strong replenishment of the Green Climate Fund. 

“The Africa Climate Summit and COP28 must also work towards strengthening mitigation efforts by advancing momentum for the significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and providing a credible path to a just, responsible and orderly energy transition. 

“On a continent where 43% of the population lacks access to electricity, clean and efficient energy offers an opportunity to supercharge Africa’s economic growth while improving lives and livelihoods. Tripling global renewable energy capacity and doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements will be critical to achieving net zero by mid-century and keeping 1.5C within reach.” 

Chevron Australia and unions representing workers at two of the U.S. energy major’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in Australia began talks aimed at averting strikes scheduled for Thursday should the parties fail to reach a deal. 

A senior member of the Fair Work Commission (FWC), Australia’s industrial umpire, is hosting talks in the Western Australia state capital of Perth every day this week, as first reported by Reuters on Aug 29. 

A member of the “Bojeo a Cuba” study releases a camera trap to photograph sharks near the coast of Cienfuegos, Cuba, August 31, 2023. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini

Today’s spotlight takes us from the sunny seashores of Cuba where a marine biologist searches for ways to rescue dying coral reefs, to the rocky mountains of Serbia where a farmer tends to wild horses. 

Cuban marine biologist Ariandy Gonzalez emerges uneasy from the sun-speckled Caribbean Sea off a remote stretch of Cuba’s south coast. Something is not right. 

The sea floor, once a mosaic of colorful corals, is now marred by patchy white splotches. That is evidence of heat-related coral bleaching, where stressed corals expel their colorful algae symbionts, leaving them pale and vulnerable. 

“I think this is the worst bleaching we’ve seen yet,” Gonzalez told five fellow scientists, hoisting himself into a small diveboat that heaved in churning seas. 

Gonzalez is among 18 scientists and crew members who for nearly two months have circumnavigated Cuba in the M/V Oceans for Youth ship to hunt for clues that could help researchers across the globe protect reefs in the face of warming waters, over-fishing, pollution and other threats. 

Slavljub Nikolic is seen with a wild horse on the mountain Stolovi in Serbia, August 31, 2023. REUTERS/Zorana Jevtic

A herd of about 40 mares, stallions and foals graze lazily on dry grass over the rugged Stolovi mountain in Serbia’s southwest, one out of three such bands of wild horses in the Balkan country. 

The horses, mainly from the sturdy Bosnian Mountain Horse breed used as pack animals and in agriculture, were brought to Mt. Stolovi in the 1970s by their owners who hoped to save on feed costs. 

Away from humans, the animals gradually became feral, reverting to behaviour more closely resembling that of wild horses, 73-year-old farmer Slavoljub Nikolic said. “They (horses) … foaled here, suffered, multiplied, and so it went on,” Nikolic said. 

Nikolic said he and other farmers sometimes climb the mountain to bring the horses a sack of corn or treats such as carrots and apples. During hot summers they also water horses from a cistern.

“Africa Climate Week is an important moment to reflect on how people most impacted by climate change often have the least leverage to shift business behavior, so we need a collective effort to drive faster corporate action that protects people and the planet.”

Gerbrand Haverkamp, executive director at the non-profit organization,

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