BONN climate change talks deadlocked - as developed countries insist on deregulation

The Bonn UN climate change negotiation has hit a stalemate.

The rift is over whether mitigation for the period 2012–2020 should be tackled by the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (AWG-ADP) or the two existing negotiating tracks.

The two already existing negotiating tracks are the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP).  A series of sessions, both plenary and informal, over the last few days have failed to resolve the impasse.

Developed countries have failed to meet their legally binding international obligations under the existing climate change regime and are therefore pushing to have mitigation negotiated under the ADP even though the Durban mandate/COP 17 extended the mandate of the AWG-LCA to enable it to continue its work which includes mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building in accordance with the Bali Action Plan (BAP), Decision 1/CP/13.

Three main outcomes emerged from the December the 2011 climate conference in Durban, South Africa. The ‘Durban mandate’ launched a process for the negotiation of a new climate treaty to be implemented from 2020. The mandate also agreed on measures to implement some decisions adopted by earlier COPs.

Developed countries are required under the existing global climate regime (convention and protocol) to cut their emissions and for non-Kyoto protocol members, such as the United States, to undertake comparable, measurable and verifiable emission cuts.

Developing countries are also, under the Bali Action Plan, tasked to carry out Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA) with financial and technological support from developed countries.

If developed countries are successful in their pursuit, it will abruptly and effectively terminate the AWG-LCA process, outcomes and the principles of equity and Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) which distinguish the actions and responsibilities of both developed and developing countries. These principles have been at the heart of climate negotiations up until now. 

Developed countries’ at Bonn will also render the work of the AWG-KP meaningless.

As a tactic, developed (Annex I) countries have categorized the stalemate as a fight over procedural issues, which imply that developing countries are wasting precious limited negotiating time.

However, as noted earlier, the fight is actually about the substance, context and paradigm of the climate regime pre-2020 and indeed the post-2020 when the Durban mandate requires a new legal global climate change regime to come into force.

Rich countries led by the United States and the European Union are most content with the ADP as it does not have comparability, firewall or support for NAMAs of developing countries unlike the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA.

Chinese delegate: Su Wei

The danger with developed countries’ plan to move 2012-2020 ‘enhancing mitigation ambition’ to the AWG-ADP is that it will reprieve these countries from legally binding commitments to install lower non-binding targets.  It will also impose an inequitable burden on developing countries in meeting mitigation ambition.

Such an outcome will invariably send global temperatures above safe limits and out of control.

Africa-South America ties & a summit put off

It was largely unexpected, at least by the African side, I gather. South America has just requested a postponement of the 3^rd Africa-South America (ASA) summit. It is unclear just yet why South America called off the meeting at this late hour.

The summit was initially scheduled to take place from May 13 to 16, 2012 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (for Obiang Nguema to flaunt his stuff again after January’s Africa Cup of Nations). No new date has been agreed upon by the two sides. The postponement is not expected to damage the growing ties between Africa and South America.

The 2^nd ASA summit was held in Venezuela on the theme ‘Closing Gaps, Opening Up Opportunities’. Sixty one (61) heads of state from 61 countries, 49 from Africa and 12 South America attended the summit in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez, who is now ill, loomed large over the 2009 meeting.

Different countries and regions have sought to court the friendship of Africa as a region in recent years even as growth prospects of the continent’s 54 countries continue to improve. Many of these courtships have culminated in glitzy fora and summits and grand announcements, of course with next to no input from citizens and local business owners.

So we now have the China-Africa Forum, Africa-Japan conference (TICAD), Africa-India Cooperation Summit, Africa-Turkey Cooperation Summit and the Africa-European Union Summit. There are many others. The China-Africa Forum seems to have received most attention in the last few years for reasons that aren’t far-fetched.

These meetings have soared in number and profile as global economic power makes a gradual but steady and unambiguous shift to the East, away from the traditional West.

Opinions over the value of these summits are varied in Africa and elsewhere. In Africa, at least, many have expressed worry that these meetings do not build people-to-people relations neither do they deliver tangible results that improve the quality of life of the population. 

Brazil's Lula and Nigeria's Jonathan

Besides that, these summits also appear to be nothing more than polished schemes to perpetuate the milking of Africa’s rich natural resources as some others have done over the last 500 years.

The question really is not whether these allegations are true or not but whether Africa can use these relations to transform itself into an economically vibrant and politically stable place for the benefit of its one billion people.

One thing is clear, given the near irreversible global shifts in economic power, Africa will need some or all of these relationships in different permutations and at different stages of its transformational agenda in the coming decades to thrive.

Africa’s fossil fuels & public expectations

Rising discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities across Africa has unleashed a sea of excitement in potential markets outside the continent but more importantly in Africa itself.

Fossil fuels are essential to the modern economy, never mind the dangers these fuels pose to global climate and the fact that Africa is most at risk from climate change.

Thus, it came as no surprise that Kenya, East Africa’s biggest economy, is gripped with excitement following the president’s announcement of a major oil find. The British oil company, Tullow Oil made the discovery last week. It is the first such find in Kenya.

Kenya Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi

Over the last six years, a host of African countries have made significant oil and gas discoveries. The list includes Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somaliland and Uganda. Many more are set to join the club in the coming months and years. Angola, Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad in Sub-Saharan Africa contribute a substantial amount to the global output.Nigeria alone contributes about 15% of US annual imports. Angola is a major supplier to China.

Growing instabilities in the Middle East can only emphasis the critical role of African fossil fuels are set to play in the global oil and gas economy.

But intrinsic in these discoveries are the dangers inefficient management and mismanaged public expectations pose to these fragile states. The Nigerian oil narrative is well documented. The growing tension between Khartoum and Juba is in part a proxy battle over oil and public expectation of oil dividends.

The discoveries in Africa is surely good news. It raises the long term prospects of these economies in the face of the ongoing global economic shifts and turmoil.

The oil crisis of the mid-1970s preceded the long and sharp decline 

of African economies which in part resulted in the adoption of the discredited structural adjustment policies in 1980s and 1990s in most Sub-Saharan African countries.

Over the last decade growth rate 

in Africa has been impressive. Millions though remain trapped in poverty with many of the continent’s one billion people still out of the reach of basic public services such as clean water, electricity and healthcare.

Discovery, production and export of the commodity in Ghana in 2007 have spurred foreign and local investment and expansion of the Ghanaian economy but not a lot of jobs. The subject of local content continues to engage analysts, policy makers and the ordinary Ghanaian. Ghana’s economy grew by 13.5 per cent in 2011. The economy  almost doubled last year, after oil exports began.

Evidently, the discovery has raised public expectations sky high to activate a hike in the cost of everything from housing to basic services to food and in some cases heightened tension between hitherto peacefully co-existing communities.

The Ghana Government is presently under fire for changing the proposed location of the country’s first modern gas processing plant to process gas from the Jubilee Field. Traditional leaders and youths of Domunli have even threatened to secede if government goes ahead to site the new plant outside the previously announced Jomoro District in the Western Region.

The plant is now to be sited at Atuabo in the Ellembelle District of the same region. The Domunli area is prone to flooding according to the authorities. It however begs the question why the area was selected in the first place after the first feasibility studies.

Threats of secession may be nothing more than grandstanding but it speaks to the larger issue of how unmanaged expectations could undermine a country’s development agenda and sow seeds of discontent.

Campaigns leading up the keenly contested 2008 presidential elections revolved around the discovered oil reserves. As Ghanaians go back to the polls this December, oil and the larger economy are shaping the campaigns.

Kenya holds its presidential and legislative elections early 2013. The post-election violence of 2007 and 2008 are still fresh in the minds of many even as the ICC seeks to prosecute alleged masterminds of the violence that ensued. Oil discovery in the Turkana County may well raise the stakes to define next year’s election but public expectation must be restrained.

It might seem contradictory but one way to address the possible shortage of relevant skills in the oil sector as well as sufficiently manage public expectation is for the Kenyan authorities to put in place a mechanism to begin the training of young Kenyans in anticipation of commercial production of the black gold. 

This way, Kenya may be more successful (than many other African countries) in minimizing the situation where all the best jobs associated with the industry go to non-Kenyans.

What Nigeria-South Africa diplomatic standoff reveals

The mosquito is a tiny insect but surely it’s a terror to millions across the tropical world, especially in Africa. Millions die each year from malaria which is caused by mosquitoes.

But today’s blog is not so much about the pest that the mosquito is. Rather it’s about a diplomatic stand-off between two giants, better still elephants, of Africa.

A diplomatic spat between two of Africa’s giants threatened to spin out of control last week.  South Africa (SA) deported 125 Nigerians for questionable Yellow Fever cards. Nigeria’s response was swift but hardly unpredictable. Nigeria subsequently denied entry to 131 South Africans. Nigeria’s foreign minister, Olusbenga Ashiru, even accused South Africa of xenophobia.

Yellow fever is an acute viral harmorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Nausea, bleeding, vomiting, jaundice and kidney failure are some of the symptoms of yellow fever.

Nigeria and SA are two of Africa’s three giants. The other is Egypt. Nigeria and SA seem bitter rivals too. South Africans are normally not enthused about Nigerians. South Africans find Nigerians a little too brash. Nigerians are also not fond of South Africans either. Nigerians find South Africans overly conceited, even arrogant. These are all labels that seem to be sticking unfortunately. The diplomatic spat took the stereotypes to new heights.

Zuma and Jonathan

The rivalry between the two countries is intense and whenever it bubbles over it grips the collective attention of all Africans and indeed the rest of the world as the immunization rift has shown. For years, Nigeria was the local hegemonic power in Africa. Until of course, South Africa emerged on the scene in 1994.

Accounting for nearly a quarter of Africa’s GDP, South Africa is arguably the continent’s largest and most modern economy. SA is now an official member of the elite club of emerging economies, the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India and China. Nigeria is not a member. South Africa is also serving a second two-year term on the United Nations Security Council.

Nigeria is also an African powerhouse. With its estimated 160 million population the country is the most populous nation on the continent. Nigeria is Africa’s leading producer of oil and gas. South Africa’s population is just about a third of Nigeria’s.

There is a large and thriving Nigerian community in major South African cities. Not so many South Africans live in Nigeria albeit some of South Africa's largest companies including MTN operate in Nigeria.

The diplomatic rift highlights, not least the longstanding rivalry, economic and political, between the two nations. Nigeria and South Africa have clashed many times at the continental level. On the continent, Nigeria and South Africa’s circle of influence do not necessarily intersect.

In international affairs, Nigeria adopts a more muscular posture, much less so with South Africa.

The two countries differ sharply over the concept of continental unity. For example, Nigeria has thrown its weight behind the idea of establishing a Central Bank of Africa under the aegis of the African Union (AU) to take up the functions of an African Monetary Fund and establish a single currency by 2028. South Africa is strongly opposed to this idea.

At the AU summit in Addis Ababa in January 2012, African leaders failed to elect a new chairperson and deputy chairperson of the AU Commission along with eight commissioners. None of the candidates for the chairperson obtained the two-third majority votes as required by the AU constitution.

Going into the elections, South Africa was hopeful its candidate for the AU chair, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, ex-wife of the South African president, Jacob Zuma would win. Nigeria backed Jean Ping, the incumbent. Ping is Gabonese. New elections will take place at the next AU summit in June in Malawi.

South Africa was accused of leading a group of 15 SADC countries to oppose the candidature of ECOWAS and other regions. Rather provocatively, the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof Bola Akinterinwa has accused South Africa of scheming to take over the control of the continent.

Nigeria supported the Libyan rebels to oust Qaddafi. South Africa was less blunt albeit Jacob Zuma attempted mediation between the rebels and the late dictator but failed.

Nigerian soldier

Nigeria projected power during the 2011 Cote d’Ivoire crisis. Nigeria called for the forceful removal of Laurent Gbagbo. South Africa was much less categorical.

The South African government has since apologized to Nigeria and blamed airport authorities for the spat. Pretoria intends to dispatch an envoy to Abuja in days.

South Africans have not taken kindly to the government's apology to Nigerians. However Nigerians welcomed their government’s swift tit-for-tat reaction and further threats to South Africa’s investment. On various social media platforms many Nigerians claimed it was the first time their national authorities had gotten something right. South Africans however dismissed the Jacob Zuma administration as weak and unable to take a stand. 

Without a doubt the stand-off was a show of muscle. SA's apology may be a tactical pullback after setting off the diplomatic storm. The offer and acceptance of the apology notwithstanding, it remains to be seen if the two giants have indeed moved beyond this latest standoff.