Giraffes and Kilimanjaro

Image by by Jim Gleeson on Flickr

African countries at the UN climate change conference in Indonesia today gave a bleak view of the talks, which have only two days in which to complete agreement.

“Africa has started counting its losses”, Nigeria’s Environment, Housing and Urban Development Minister, Halima Tayo Alao, told fellow delegates.

Speaking on behalf of the African Group, she indicated that African negotiators felt their interests were not being taken into account.

Africa was in a worse position than at the time of the previous round of talks in May – and worse even than a week ago at the outset of the Bali meeting.

The minister described the idea of carrying the existing inadequate arrangements for Africa into a new agreement as “totally unacceptable”.

Her statement was all the more outspoken because it came during an open session of the “high level segment” of the negotiations – a reference to the arrival and participation of ministers rather than officials.

She singled out the “grossly unequal distribution” of funds under the Clean Development Mechanism, designed to help developing countries get onto a lower-carbon development path. Africa’s share was “quite negligible”, she said.

The minister also said it was regrettable that agreement had not been reached on other key parts of the negotiations, such as technology transfer and help for capacity building (“all efforts so far have centred more on seminars and workshops rather than demonstrable pilot projects as well as use of local expertise”).

She called for the establishment of a Technology Development and Transfer Fund.

On these and other issues she also emphasised the need for “urgent intervention” by delegates before the end of negotiations.

She rounded off her blast by observing, “What happened so far in this conference has clearly indicated that we are yet to demonstrate our care for the survival of humanity.”