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Africa: Global Climate Action Progressing, but Speed and Scale Still Lacking

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Former UN Climate Chief Christiana Figueres praised the role of small island states in maintaining the integrity of international climate agreements but said the world was far behind and said that the decarbonisation of the global economy is by now irreversible with or without the craziness in the United States.
2025 marks the tenth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement. One of its chief architects, Christiana Figueres, says the world is heading in the right direction but warns that urgent action is needed to close critical gaps.
The pact, adopted in 2015 by 195 nations, set out to limit global warming to “well below 2°C” above pre-industrial levels, striving for 1.5°C. But in 2024, the world shattered records as the hottest year ever, surpassing that crucial threshold.
Speaking at a press briefing with the Oxford Climate Journalism Network on March 27, Figueres said while technology and investment are advancing, the world is not moving fast enough.
“We’re far behind,” she said. “We have very clear data points of all of the technologies that are exponentially growing on both sides of the market – the supply side as well as the demand – and we can see that all of that is moving, as well as investment. That definitely defines the direction of travel and the decarbonisation of the global economy is by now irreversible with or without the craziness in the United States. What still is not at the level that we should have is speed and scale.”
A co-founder of Global Optimism, an organisation focused on hope and action in the face of climate change, Figueres emphasised the urgency of the crisis while highlighting the global capacity to address it.
While one in five people globally already experience climate impacts daily, and climate-related costs rose to $320 billion last year, investment in clean technology is outpacing fossil fuels, she noted.
“We had last year two times the level of investment into clean technology versus fossil fuels and the prices continue to fall. Every year they fall even more and more. Solar prices last year fell by a whopping 35%. Electric vehicle batteries fell by 20%,” she said.
Figueres also spoke about the disproportionate burden placed on small island nations, which are already importing fossil fuels at the cost of up to 30% of their national budgets. “These islands are importing the poison that is directly threatening their survival,” she argued, stressing the need for renewable energy solutions like wind and hydro to replace fossil fuels.
The former head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) also praised the role of small island states in maintaining the integrity of international climate agreements. “It’s not the size of the nation but the integrity of their position that matters,” she said, noting how these nations have consistently held larger emitters accountable.
Asked about the Paris Agreement’s architecture, Figueres defended its approach.
“The Paris Agreement is really strange in its legal bindingness. It is legally binding to all countries that have ratified it, but what is binding is the overall trajectory of decarbonisation to get to net zero by 2050. What is not binding is the level of the NDCs which are the nationally determined contributions that every country has to submit every 5 years and be held accountable against that,” she said, likening the agreement’s style to running a marathon, “the goal is clear, but the pace is up to each runner.”
Figueres says the COP process was designed in the early 1990s as a multilateral platform for countries to negotiate agreements aimed at addressing climate change collectively – something that was critical for establishing frameworks like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. She stressed that with agreements in place to guide global decarbonisation until 2050, the next phase of climate talks should focus on implementation rather than new negotiations.
“The implementation is mostly on the part of the private sector and the financial sector. Do they need governments to support them? Absolutely, so what governments need to do is to put regulations, incentives, and tax credits in place to accelerate investment in the sectors that we know are going to address climate change and to give long-term certainty to the private sector so that they can do their planning, but those regulations, those incentives, and those tax breaks are not to be negotiated between countries. They are to be enacted nationally, domestically.”
With COP 30 approaching, Figueres urged countries to take a long-term view in their climate planning. “NDCs should align government and private sector ambitions with the next decade’s possibilities, not just the current technologies,” she said.
As host country Brazil prepares for the 2025 UN Climate Talks, Figueres called for a holistic approach to climate policy, linking energy, industry, and nature. She also cautioned against framing COP 30 as a “last chance”, emphasising that it should be seen as a milestone in a longer journey toward global climate goals.
2025 marks the tenth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement. One of its chief architects, Christiana Figueres says the world is heading in the right direction but warns that urgent action is needed to close critical gaps.
The pact, adopted in 2015 by 195 nations, set out to limit global warming to “well below 2°C” above pre-industrial levels, striving for 1.5°C. But in 2024, the world shattered records as the hottest year ever, surpassing that crucial threshold.
Speaking at a press briefing with the Oxford Climate Journalism Network on March 27, Figueres said while technology and investment are advancing, the world is not moving fast enough.
“We’re far behind,” she said. “We have very clear data points of all of the technologies that are exponentially growing on both sides of the market – the supply side as well as the demand – and we can see that all of that is moving, as well as investment. That definitely defines the direction of travel and the decarbonisation of the global economy is by now irreversible with or without the craziness in the United States. What still is not at the level that we should have is speed and scale.”
A co-founder of Global Optimism, an organisation focused on hope and action in the face of climate change, Figueres emphasised the urgency of the crisis while highlighting the global capacity to address it.
While one in five people globally already experience climate impacts daily, and climate-related costs rose to $320 billion last year, investment in clean technology is outpacing fossil fuels, she noted.
“We had last year two times the level of investment into clean technology versus fossil fuels and the prices continue to fall. Every year they fall even more and more. Solar prices last year fell by a whopping 35%. Electric vehicle batteries fell by 20%,” she said.
Figueres also spoke about the disproportionate burden placed on small island nations, which are already importing fossil fuels at the cost of up to 30% of their national budgets. “These islands are importing the poison that is directly threatening their survival,” she argued, stressing the need for renewable energy solutions like wind and hydro to replace fossil fuels.
The former head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) also praised the role of small island states in maintaining the integrity of international climate agreements. “It’s not the size of the nation but the integrity of their position that matters,” she said, noting how these nations have consistently held larger emitters accountable.
Asked about the Paris Agreement’s architecture, Figueres defended its approach.
“The Paris Agreement is really strange in its legal bindingness. It is legally binding to all countries that have ratified it, but what is binding is the overall trajectory of decarbonisation to get to net zero by 2050. What is not binding is the level of the NDCs, which are the nationally determined contributions that every country has to submit every 5 years and be held accountable against that,” she said, likening the agreement’s style to running a marathon, “the goal is clear, but the pace is up to each runner.”
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Figueres says the COP process was designed in the early 1990s as a multilateral platform for countries to negotiate agreements aimed at addressing climate change collectively – something that was critical for establishing frameworks like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. She stressed that with agreements in place to guide global decarbonisation until 2050, the next phase of climate talks should focus on implementation rather than new negotiations.
“The implementation is mostly on the part of the private sector and the financial sector. Do they need governments to support them? Absolutely, so what governments need to do is to put regulations, incentives, and tax credits in place to accelerate investment in the sectors that we know are going to address climate change and to give long-term certainty to the private sector so that they can do their planning, but those regulations, those incentives, and those tax breaks are not to be negotiated between countries. They are to be enacted nationally, domestically.”
With COP 30 approaching, Figueres urged countries to take a long-term view in their climate planning. “NDCs should align government and private sector ambitions with the next decade’s possibilities, not just the current technologies,” she said.
As host country Brazil prepares for the 2025 UN Climate Talks, Figueres called for a holistic approach to climate policy, linking energy, industry, and nature. She also cautioned against framing COP 30 as a “last chance”, emphasising that it should be seen as a milestone in a longer journey toward global climate goals.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Read the original article on IPS.
AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 110 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.
Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.
AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa – aggregating, producing and distributing 500 news and information items daily from over 110 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington DC.
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Mongolia to deepen ties with Zambia

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By Mark Ziligone

Mongolian President UKHNAAGIIN KHURELSUKH has reaffirmed his country’s commitment to strengthening bilateral relations with Zambia.

President KHURELSUKH says his country will remain committed to international cooperation particularly through platforms such as the United Nations and other global organizations.

He has highlighted key areas for potential collaboration, including mining, agriculture, and tourism sectors adding that they are critical to the development agendas of both countries.

President KHURELSUKH was speaking when Zambia’s ambassador to Mongolia IVAN ZYUULU presented letters of credence to him at State House in Ulaanbaatar.

The Mongolian President welcomed the Ambassador and expressed confidence that the new envoy will help deepen the diplomatic and economic ties between Zambia and Mongolia.

And Mr. ZYUULU praised Mongolia’s expertise in mineral exploration and sustainable agriculture, expressing Zambia’s interest in drawing lessons and forming partnerships for mutual benefit.

Meanwhile Mongolia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, BATMUNKH BATTSETSEG reaffirmed his country’s readiness to work closely with Zambia and to explore new avenues of cooperation.

This is contained in a statement issued to ZNBC News by Second Secretary for Communications at the Zambian Embassy in Beijing, China CATHERINE KASHOTI.

The post Mongolia to deepen ties with Zambia appeared first on ZNBC-Just for you.

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Africa: Trump Wants World to Subsidise US Empire

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Donald Trump’s top economic advisor claims the President has weaponised tariffs to ‘persuade’ other nations to pay the US to maintain its supposedly mutually beneficial global empire.
Geopolitical economist Ben Norton was among the first to highlight the significance of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman Stephen Miran‘s briefing at the Hudson Institute.
The Institute is funded by financiers such as media czar Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and other conservative media.
Miran made his case just after Trump’s electoral victory in A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System. Miran attempts to rationalise Trump’s economic policies, which are widely seen as at odds with conventional wisdom and reason.
Enhancing US dominance
Miran defends Trump’s tariffs as part of an ambitious economic strategy to strengthen US interests internationally with a “generational change in the international trade and financial systems”.
“Our military and financial dominance cannot be taken for granted, and the Trump administration is determined to preserve them”. Miran claims the US provides two major ‘global public goods’, both “costly to us to provide”.
First, Miran claims US military spending provides the world a ‘security umbrella’ that others should also pay for. Second, the US issues the dollar and Treasury bonds, the main reserve assets for the liquidity of the international monetary and financial system.
Miran seems blissfully unaware of longstanding complaints of US ‘exorbitant privilege’. The dollar’s reserve currency status has provided seigniorage income to the US while Treasury bond sales have long financed US debt at very low cost.
Miran’s case for Trump
The White House has threatened others with high tariffs unless they make concessions, at their own expense, benefiting the US. Miran’s defence of tariffs is indirect, as part of an ostensible grand strategy.
“The President has been clear that the United States is committed to remaining the reserve [currency] provider”, Miran added. He claims US dollar hegemony is “great” and denies “dollar dominance is a problem”.
While this “has some side effects, which can be problematic”, Miran “would like to … ameliorate the side effects, so that dollar dominance can continue for decades, in perpetuity”.
For Miran, these side effects are supposedly largely adverse while ignoring the benefits to the US. Chronic US trade deficits have been possible and financed by mounting US debt, enabling the dollar to serve as a global reserve currency.
Hence, US trade deficits have been sustained since the 1960s, rather than “unsustainable”, as he alleges. US manufacturing has been “decimated” by its consumers and transnational corporations, not by an extensive foreign conspiracy.
Miran’s Guide acknowledged the ‘Triffin dilemma’. In 1960, Robert Triffin warned that the dollar’s status as global reserve currency posed problems and risks for US monetary policy.
He invokes Triffin to argue that the US must import more than it exports to provide liquidity to the world, which needs dollars for international trade and to hold as reserves.
Miran adopts the Trumpian narrative of only blaming others. However, the US expected to benefit from continuing trade surpluses at Bretton Woods. In 1944, it opposed alternative payments arrangements to deter excessive trade surpluses.
US trade deficits have grown since the 1960s with post-World War II reconstruction of the Global North and uneven ‘late industrialisation’ in the Global South.
The empire must pay
The Trump administration wants to eat its cake and still have it. It intends to strengthen US empire while minimising adverse side effects and costs.
Miran wants foreign nations to “pay their fair share” in five ways. First, “countries should accept tariffs on their exports to the US without retaliation”. Tariffs provide revenue, which has financed its global public goods provision. Second, they should buy “more US-made goods”.
Third, they should “boost defense spending and procurement from the US”. Fourth, they should “invest in and install factories in America”. Fifth, they should “simply … help us finance global public goods”, i.e., foreign aid should go to or via the US.
Miran then emphasises that Trump “will no longer stand for other nations free-riding”, and calls for “improved burden-sharing at the global level”.
“If other nations want to benefit from the US geopolitical and financial umbrella, then they need to … pay their fair share”, i.e., the world must “bear the costs” of maintaining US empire.
Trump dilemmas 2.0
Trump wants to use tariffs to force countries with trade surpluses with the US to buy more from the US. Ending these deficits would undermine dollar hegemony, which, paradoxically, Trump obsessively wants to preserve.
Miran wants other countries to convert their US Treasury bills into 100-year bonds at very low interest rates, effectively subsidising the US over the long term. He also wants nations running trade surpluses with the US to buy more long-term US Treasury securities.
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Trump has threatened 100% tariffs on BRICS members and all countries promoting de-dollarisation or undermining dollar hegemony in the international monetary system.
During his first term, Trump wanted to do the near-impossible by boosting exports while preserving a strong dollar!
Miran acknowledges that the “root of the economic imbalances lies in persistent dollar overvaluation that prevents international trade balancing”. But he also insists that dollar “overvaluation is driven by inelastic demand for reserve assets”.
Trump now hopes to kill both US trade and fiscal deficit birds by cutting imports and raising revenue with higher tariffs. He also wants the world to continue using dollars despite the US budget and trade deficits and policy uncertainties.
Meanwhile, official US debt, financed by selling Treasury bonds, continues to grow. Trump has to deliver his promised tax cuts soon before his earlier measures run out. Trump is falling foul of his bluster and may have to revert to the status quo ante while denying it.
Despite Miran’s best efforts, he cannot provide a coherent rationale for Trump’s rhetoric. But dismissing Trump as ‘mad’ or ‘stupid’ obscures the impossible dilemma due to and obscured by post-war US dominance.
IPS UN Bureau
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
Read the original article on IPS.
AllAfrica publishes around 500 reports a day from more than 110 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.
Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.
AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa – aggregating, producing and distributing 500 news and information items daily from over 110 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington DC.
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HH Media Freedom Stance Applauded

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By Joy Nyambe

The Media Self-Regulation Council of Zambia -MSCZ- has welcomed the statement by President HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, who says he is totally and unequivocally opposed to the Zambia Institute of Journalism Bill.

Media Self-Regulation Council of Zambia Chairperson KENNEDY MAMBWE has commended the President for swiftly weighing in and stating a clear Government position.

Mr. MAMBWE believes the President’s statement brings finality to the media regulation debate.

He says in a statement that MSCZ remains committed to the promotion of ethical and professional journalism in Zambia.

Mr. MAMBWE said hundreds of journalists across the country as well as media houses are currently subscribed to a professional Code of Ethics.

He further said a self regulatory mechanism is fully operational with the Media Ethics and Complaints Committee comprising eminent professionals headed by Legal Counsel SAM MUJUDA, currently adjudicating on public complaints against any media misconduct.

Mr. MAMBWE has assured the Government and President HICHILEMA in particular, of the MSCZ’s utmost and unwavering commitment to the promotion of the highest standard and ethical journalism in Zambia.

 

The post HH Media Freedom Stance Applauded appeared first on ZNBC-Just for you.

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