Several Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from Africa and a few international organizations have submitted a petition to the President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina calling on the leadership of the bank to immediately put in place and publish on the AfDB website a fossil fuel finance exclusion policy which states that the bank will not fund, provide financial services or capacity support to any coal project on the African continent.
The petition was submitted on Africa Day on the 25th of May, 2020 by the Zero Emissions Omissions Campaign led by a coalition of NGOs, CSOs and volunteers from across the African continent. The initiative is conducted by the African Climate Reality Project based in South Africa.
According to the organizations, the call is in accordance with previous correspondence sent to the AfDB President in October 2019, where they welcomed their announcement made on 24 September 2019, in which they reiterated AfDB’s commitment to no longer fund coal on the continent, but to rather build the “largest solar zone in the world” in the Sahel region.
“While recognising your commitment to rid Africa of coal’s influence and to accelerate the use of renewable energies, we are convinced that, given the climate emergency and the short timeline to achieve net-zero emissions, the AfDB can and should do more by officially and definitively disengaging itself from any current or future fossil fuel projects,” the organizations said in the letter.
In the petition, the organizations said that according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Africa is expected to experience devastating climate change impacts. These impacts are already affecting the continent and its people, hampering economic development, sometimes eroding years of economic progress, exacerbating conflict, and pushing hundreds of thousands of people every year into forced migration, especially those living in arid zones and areas affected by desertification and floods.
Recently, torrential rains triggered devastating floods and landslides across East Africa, aggravating an already challenging situation as countries in the region battle a triple crisis of climate change impacts, the corona virus pandemic, and the locust invasion.
The destruction caused by the floods killed hundreds of people in Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, while displacing hundreds of thousands – and also ironically washing away a hospital in Uganda as people move into makeshift camps which make social distancing impossible. Migration also often depends on mobility and access to resources, which means those that were most vulnerable to the floods were unable to migrate. Instead, they have remained in the same locations, increasing their susceptibility to future climate-induced harms.
It is reported that while the extreme weather events and associated risks threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions of Africans, the urgency to shift African economies’ dependence on fossil fuel based energy generation to renewable energies has never been more crucial.
It is added that a report by the IPCC highlights that if fossil fuel projects continue at the current global rate, Africa is heading straight for an average warming of 3 to 4 °C as a climate hotspot – and a new study shows that globally, up to 3 billion people will be living in a climate too hot for human survival by the year 2070.
The scenario would have disastrous consequences, ranging from extreme heat that would affect the majority of the continent’s land to increased risks of extreme drought, extreme flooding, and a decline in agricultural yield, leaving millions of people with no food to eat.
The IPCC report also made it clear that anyone who supports the fossil fuel industry knowingly, contributes to untold suffering around the world. Despite this scientific consensus, in November 2019, the AfDB approved a long-term Senior Loan of $400 million to support the building of an integrated Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant, including a liquefaction facility in Mozambique.
The organizations said that in doing so, the Bank is ensuring that Africa is locked into years of emissions that it simply cannot afford.
Recent data reveals that solar, wind and other green technologies now provide more than one-third of the world’s power. The organizations said in the letter that while this signifies a positive trajectory for the future of renewable energy, the current economic crisis due to the corona pandemic is likely to slow this process.
However, experts show that there are long term prospects for renewables to emerge stronger than ever, especially if governments and major financial institutions integrate support for clean energy into COVID-19 economic-recovery programs.
According to the organizations presenting the petition, given the urgency of the climate crisis, 2020 has become a fundamental year in which the AfDB must support the African continent in increasing our ambition to leave fossil fuels in the past, and leap for the age of renewable energy and sustainable development.
Therefore, the AfDB has been urged to immediately develop an AfDB policy that the bank will not fund, provide financial services, or capacity support to any fossil fuel projects on the African continent following the development of a draft policy, immediately publish the draft on the AfDB website and allow a public comment period of a minimum of 30 days, shift the AfDB’s investment portfolios to 100% renewable energy projects and sustainable, low-emission agriculture and infrastructure, publish a roadmap to reduce portfolio-wide emissions and align with 1.5ºC Paris Agreement goal, publish a timeline for the construction of the “largest solar energy zone on the planet” in the Sahel region before the end of 2020 and support recovery and response plans of the most vulnerable countries as grants, not loans to avoid worsening the debt crisis.
According to Nicole Rodel, Communications Officer for the Climate Reality project, this is the second petition to the AfDB which the Zero coalition has delivered on the same initiative.
She said that the first one which began in November 2018 called on the AfDB to shift to renewable energy and improve their transparency.
The petition gained over 6 800 signatures by the time of Africa Day last year in 2019, according to Rodel.
She said they delivered the results to the AfDB at the Southern Africa Regional Development and Business Delivery office and met with representatives of the bank to discuss the petition.
Rodel added that there was some positive news in 2019 due to efforts of so many civil society organizations and individuals when the AfDB pulled out of funding the Lamu coal plant in Kenya and when the President of the bank announced at the United Nations Climate Action summit that the bank was getting out of coal.
She added that following that announcement, the coalition sent communication to the bank last year to welcome the announcement and called on the leadership of the bank to put in place and publish a coal exclusion policy and shift the investment portfolio to 100% renewable energy projects and sustainable, low-emission agriculture and infrastructure initiatives.
They have also developed a digital toolkit which is being used to support and share the petition to tell climate action stories.
According to Rodel, on the recent petition, at least 336 individual signatures have been appended including endorsements from 26 organizations. ”Our hope is that we can all work together to create a more sustainable, climate resilient, and just future for the African continent,” Rodel said.
