With the African continent being at the crossroads of climate discussions, the theme of the summit is A graceful just transition and Nationally Determined Conditions (NDCs) implementation responsive to African development aspirations and economic realities
Day 2 of the conference has been truly inspiring, we had the privilege of listening to powerful speeches by visionary leaders from our beloved continent Africa, and the spirit of pan-Africanism was palpable throughout today’s session filling us with hope for a United Africa
One of the key topics discussed was the urgent need to protect our people from the devastating impacts of the ongoing climate crisis, legislators were called upon to act and implement measures that safeguard our environment and ensure the well-being of all African communities
Let us come today, Africans, shoulder to shoulder and play our part in creating a sustainable future for generations to come, together we can make a difference and build a better Africa
Dr Mithika Mwenda made the following remarks in his speech, this summit was hosted gently by PACJA and PAP and it brings together PAP members from across Africa, but it also rules delegates from individual National Assemblies committees responsible for the environment from each country. We have fought the global pandemic Covid 19, the Ukrainian war, skyrocketing food crisis, the cost of living crisis and the deepening death crisis threatening to reverse all global efforts to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development
Throughout the day, delegates shared perspectives, exchanged ideas and experiences on the international climate policy processes both in their countries and globally and came to the near consensus that a new paradigm is required to energize the conversations towards climate change. It was observed that more than 3 decades of discussions under the out species of the UNFCCC have resulted in fatigue across the board and many stakeholders are concerned about endless conferences which have become more than a ritual with predictable declarations, decisions, resolutions, communique which remain on paper without implementation and 7yrs after the parish agreement was adopted, the global stocktake has not informed us that we are on the right track or not.
That we are looking at graceful transitions and NDCs implementation responsive to African development aspirations responsible for economic realities, this is what this brings us to the crossroads;
The crossroads of development and the crossroads of balancing with the desire to combat the climate crisis
The crossroads of remaining in the current sustainable moons of production and d conception which led us to where we are now and adopting new development pathways that may have an impact on our growth pathway but direct us towards zero carbon future
The crossroads of abandoning the vast fossils fuel resources underneath our source and the crossroads of exploitation h the resources to power our people on energy poverty and hunger
He pointed out, we are wondering whether the summit will join other conferences only to end with such declarations.
H.E President William Ruto, president of the republic of Kenya spoke passionately in his speech and emphasized that this is a time to be bold, strong, and resolute enough to confront these challenges with greater unity and greater commitment
We have been too of focused on the challenges and the difficulties we face and the assistance we need in a way that depicts us as chronically subordinates, internally vulnerable and perpetually incapable
Consequently, an emerging psychology of victimhood implicates both African and global leadership in a politics of pity and helplessness,
He is persuaded that our generation of African leaders has the historic mandate to retire this unhelpful profile and, in its place, articulate a more accurate and compelling portrait of Africa that is both faithful to the fact yet also developmentally inspirational
When Africa is discussed, it is only being discussed in the context of the problem, our voices are limited to problems of climate change and they keep saying we will help you to manage your problem, we will look into it, we will look for some little money for mitigation but we as Africans do not want to be in that corner, we want to be in the conversations about the solutions and we have what it takes
African countries contain inherent competitive positions to emerge as clean green global manufacturing houses and that is a unique position we have.
Africa, if the youngest continent, therefore, has the greatest potential, we have the resources that they need so much for us to move into the future.
