Climate Change and Africa
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Most participants agreed on a general framework for understanding the African position as a change of narrative from a Western view of the problem as one of mitigation versus economic growth to an African view of the problem as one of adaptation and economic growth.
In more common terms, think of the Western view as the type of conversation overwhelming the media outlets today. It focuses on the idea that we can not tackle the climate change problem without harming the economy.
While that position may or may not contain an element of truth (consider the fact that many of those same proponents told us that we should not regulate Wall Street because that would harm the economy), it remains the dominant climate change narrative in the United States.
African discussions, on the other hand, focus on adaptation for one very good reason. Apart from South Africa, and potentially Nigeria, current African development problems, more specifically the lack of sustainable development, grow out of the fact that their individual state economic development plans overly rely on single commodity production for export earnings.
A recent article from Africa Renewal, for example, says, "Earnings from primary commodities represent 40 per cent of Africa's gross domestic product. For 20 countries, a single commodity accounts for more than 50 per cent of export revenue."
Single commodity producers like those of the African continent not only face economic development problems, they also face unique climate change problems. For example, changing rainfall patterns associated with climate change mean that states relying on export earnings from single agricultural products such as coffee, risk both ecological and economic collapse.
So, African discussions of climate change focus more on how states can adapt to the realities of both climate change and economic development, and move forward with a comprehensive program addressing both issues. A changing climate also potentially exacerbates current water and food stresses evident across much of the continent.
Generally the discussions focused on a variety of technological and financial approaches for dealing with climate problems.
See also: Nairobi Declaration on the African Process for Combating Climate Change
© 2009. Patricia A. Michaels