Climate Ethics and Justice for Africa in the Post-2020 Climate Regime

Speaker: Dr Chuks Okereke

There has been plenty of talk about fairness being at the heart of the international cooperative action against human-driven climate change but, from an African point of view, there is little evidence of it so far. On the contrary, Africa has been short-changed and largely overlooked in much of the global discourse and policy development relating to climate change. The continent has no official mention in the United Nations Convention for Climate Change or in the Kyoto Protocol — the two principal documents of the cooperative institution designed by the United Nations to tackle global climate change. The assumption is that Africa’s interests are covered as part of the wider group of developing countries. But this is misguided so long as Africa does not command any significant influence in the developing countries’ negotiating bloc, often referred to as G77 . As the negotiation of the post-2020 climate agreement gets into the critical state, a clear analysis is needed on what constitutes climate justice for Africa and the institutions and policies required at both national and global level to deliver climate justice for Africa.

This paper argues that the post 2020 climate agreement is developing in way that will lead to further marginalization of, and climate injustice for Africa.