‘Not yet uhuru’: Unpacking COP27 outcomes and Africa’s interests

The 27th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt was scheduled for November 6  to 18, but ended two days beyond schedule on Sunday, November 20.

In the final text of the agreement at COP27, a decision to establish a fund for addressing “loss and damage” was made. The inclusion of loss and damage on the COP27 agenda and the agreement to establish a loss and damage facility was seen as a win for Africa and other developing countries.

However, according to an environmental activist, Zikora Ibeh of Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA), “it is not yet uhuru.”

Ibeh spoke at a media debrief to discuss the outcomes of COP27, alongside Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director of CAPPA; and Philip Jakpor, Programmes Director of CAPPA in Lagos on Friday.

They were joined virtually by Nnimmo Bassey of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and Chima Williams of the Environmental Rights Action (ERA). These environmental activists at the media debrief gave a bitter-sweet account of COP27.

 

Reactions to COP27 final text

Prior to the debrief in Lagos, beyond the shores of Nigeria in the UK, Alok Sharma, the president of COP26 that was held in Glasgow in 2021, spoke on what he saw was missing in the COP27 final agreement text.

He said, “Emissions peaking before 2025 as the science tells us is necessary? Not in this text. Clear follow-through on the phase down of coal? Not in this text. A clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels? Not in this text.”

Ani Dasgupta, President and CEO, World Resources Institute (WRI), said: “While progress on loss and damage was encouraging, it is disappointing that the decision mostly copy and pasted language from Glasgow about curbing emissions, rather than taking any significant new steps. WRI research shows that the world is collectively lagging on climate action across every sector. The only way to avoid even more severe climate impacts and keep 1.5° C alive is if we rapidly slash emissions this decade.

“New calls to accelerate deployment of renewable energy were very welcome. But it is mindboggling that countries did not muster the courage to call for phasing down fossil fuels, which are the biggest driver of climate change.”

 

What is a COP meant to do?

Nnimmo Bassey has attended at least 12 COPs since his first at COP. The veteran environmental activist had this to say about the expectations of civil society from COP27.

“The COP provides a space for society to meet, to meet with impacted communities, to meet with people from different regions, to share ideas and strategise!

“I see the COP as a catalyst space for civil society to prepare, and to learn and to share strategies.

He added that the whole idea of UNFCCC and the conference of parties (COP) that meets every year is to discuss on how nations should act so as to tackle the climate emergency.

“But we are seeing almost every year in recent times that nations that go to the negotiations are more concerned about how to avoid responsibility, how to avoid action, and how to make business out of the conferences.

“So, the conference has become more like a carbon trade fair, where you hear people posing, selling carbon credits, and discussing about all kinds of non-solutions which we call ‘false solutions’.”

Bassey noted that “from the COP in Copenhagen, which was in 2009, the COP really shifted in the wrong direction, enthroning the voluntary emissions reduction regime, which was consolidated in the Paris Agreement in 2015.”

He said, “the negotiations were more about how to avoid mentioning the root cause of the problem. And the root cause of the problem, we know, is a dependence on fossil fuels.

“At this COP, there was an expectation in the dying hours that the COP may decide to include in the outcome document a ‘phasing out’ of all fossil fuels. Now, that didn’t come to pass.

“Why didn’t that happen? Because of the heavy presence of fossil fuel industry delegates, who constituted themselves to be a larger bloc than even the largest delegation from any country in Africa.

“So clearly, the corridors of the COP was filled with fossil fuel producers whose sole reason for being there is to ensure that their business goes on without anyone interfering and they succeeded.

“The only bright light that came from COP27 was the agreement that the COP should consider loss and damage.”

 

‘Fossil fuel industry lobbyists derailed COP27 outcome’

Philip Jakpor, director of programmes at CAPPA, described the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists as having mosquitoes attend a conference on dealing with malaria. He said their overwhelming numbers at COP27 which was higher than in previous COPs successfully derailed proceedings at COP27.

Jakpor said, “With the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP27 this time around, it’s like you discussing malaria, and you are inviting the mosquito. I think that’s the best description of what we saw at COP27.

“About 636 fossil fuel lobbyists were at the COP.  What are the fossil fuel lobbyists doing at the COP? Essentially, it is to help to derail the talks, distract delegates and ultimately ensure that the goal of cutting down on emissions does not happen.

“Even at the end of the COP, further investigations showed that 18 out of the 20 sponsors of the COP were actually fossil fuel industry players.

“It was also disturbing that our own country (Nigeria) even with the flooding we witnessed this year in our pavilion had a roll up banner with partners being the fossil fuel industry.

“We had a lot of people from the affected communities who could not get accreditation to attend and those who did not have the funds to come to the COP in Egypt, supposedly the African COP. But we had the fossil fuel industry in full swing holding meetings, displaying new technologies, evidently to distract us from what the COP is supposed to be all about.”

 

‘Nigerian delegation to COP27 incredibly large’

CAPPA Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, commented on the size of the Nigerian delegation at COP27 as being incredibly large. He echoed Jakpor’s observation on the open display of fossil fuel industry players as “our partners” at the Nigerian pavilion at COP27.

“The COP this year held in Egypt, and some people by some semantics, called it an African COP.”

He said the issue is not to look at the fact that the COP was held on African soil, but to bring to the fore issues concerning Africa.

Oluwafemi questioned the size of the delegation from Nigeria, saying: “It was incredible. I’ve never seen that large delegation, including people from the corporate banks and the rest of them.

“The absurdity at the Nigerian pavilion was advertising the fact that they were partnering or being sponsored by the fossil fuel industry.”

 

What’s next after loss and damage?

Chima Williams, who heads ERA, an environmental rights NGO based in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, said “the discussion on loss and damage can go on and on.”

He added that “Now, it means that we must come back and begin to organise ourselves on how to hold the corporate operators that are destroying frontline communities to account.

“This is where strategic litigation becomes the way to go. How do we want to do this litigation? Do we want to do home country or host country litigation? Do we want to do combined where we get a cluster of African countries that are impacted by fossil fuel industry activities that have a visible impact as in the case of Nigeria? We need to discuss this!”

Williams, a lawyer, explained that “Strategic litigation means, most of the time, cases that have never been done before, precedence-setting cases. And that is what we’ve been doing for the past close to 20 years – starting from the first case on environmental justice that was instituted by Oronto Douglas.

“That was the foundation of environmental litigation in Nigeria, if not in Africa.

“All of us took a cue from that experience, and started to redefine the processes and practice of environmental justice litigation.

“So, when we talk about strategic litigation, it takes creativity of the lawyers – you can’t find any single law anywhere. But if you look in depth, you will see some pieces of laws and legislations, declarations, treaties, standards, frameworks that you can apply to ensure that you get it right in the law courts.”

 

Not yet uhuru on loss and damage until…

CAPPA’s Zikora Ibeh, as mentioned earlier, said it is not yet uhuru regarding the progress made on loss and damage until the funding facility agreed on is operationalised.

She described loss and damage as compensation for “the disruptive impacts of climate change that adaptation and mitigation – which are to cope with climate change – cannot solve,” such as the loss of lives from floods.

“For me, it’s a big political win that loss and damage was finally acknowledged at COP27, after years of bickering and arguments by developing nations and developed nations on whether loss and damage should be acknowledged or whether it should not.

“It’s a big political win for campaigners, for indigenous communities, and for activists.

“But it is not yet uhuru for us, because while loss and damage was able to get on the agenda for COP27, there are still gray areas that have not yet been addressed. It is one thing to say yes, we agree that there is a need to establish a loss and damage funding facility. But it’s another thing to get money to start flowing into it. So, until the facility becomes operationalised, then it is not yet a win.”

“We know about climate finance and its setbacks. In 2009, developed countries agreed that they are going to pay developing nations $100 billion from 2009 to 2020. But as we speak, that money has not yet been realised!”