The argument over whether climate change is or is not exacerbated by human activity has, to all intents and purposes, been settled. What remains for the world to decide is what actions it will take to reduce the intensity and scale of those changes. While it isn't yet possible to pin specific meteorological events on global warming, it is evident that for the poor of the developing world, the effects of climate change are already being felt and the threats to human well-being caused by environmental degradation are neither abstract nor localized.
These changes would be hard to adjust to in and of themselves even if they were not compounded by the problems already facing the African continent. Almost half of Africa's land area is vulnerable to desertification—particularly the Sahel and southern Africa.11 In addition, the Sahara continues to spread by thirty miles a year,12 and the pace of desertification has doubled since the 1970s.13 Within three generations, by the 2080s, the proportion of arid and semi-arid lands in Africa is likely to increase by 5 to 8 percent.14
Climate change will also have social and economic effects. Millions more poor people from rural areas are likely to relocate to cities, or to seek to flee their countries altogether, joining other environmental refugees. Coastal areas may become less habitable, forcing people living there to find other means of earning an income or to migrate inland. Women will be disproportionately affected by climate change, because across Africa they are most directly dependent on natural resources. They collect the firewood and draw the water; they plant the seeds and harvest the crops. However, women's voices have been largely absent from policy discussions and negotiations over global warming. Their experiences, creativity, and leadership should be part of the solution to the climate crisis.
THE EXPANDING FOOTPRINT
Scientists are only just beginning to understand the depth and range of services provided by Earth's ecosystems.15 In 1998, a team of economists and scientists estimated that the life systems of the planet provided an astonishing $33 trillion worth of benefits,16 or even as much as $54 trillion.17 Yet the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a global effort undertaken between 2001 and 2005 involving nearly 1,500 researchers worldwide, found that a majority of both land and marine ecosystems throughout the planet are degraded, some critically.18 If these trends are not reversed, many livelihoods will be threatened.
Of course, the cavalier attitude toward the Earth is not only an African problem: the danger we collectively face—of not paying sufficient attention until too much has been lost—challenges all human societies. Indeed, according to the 2005 Footprint of Nations report, humanity's collective ecological footprint averages out at 21.9 hectares (about 54 acres) per person, although the planet's biological capacity can support only an average footprint of 15.7 hectares (about 39 acres) per person. (The footprint analysis measures the combined natural resources—such as water, energy, land, and forests—used to support a person's lifestyle.) Although the average ecological footprint in the developed world far surpasses the size of that in Africa (less than one hectare, or 2.5 acres, per person),19 the fact that humanity's current use of resources is outstripping the planet's ecological capacity should give all of us reason to pause. It is simply not sustainable for the rest of the world to mine, log, drill, build, dam, drain, and pave in a rush to achieve the standards of living of the industrialized countries, which themselves depend on massive resource extraction from the global South.
Given these realities, it continues to baffle me that African leaders do not educate their people so they understand the enormous threat likely to face them and how important it is for them to use the resources within their borders to mitigate this threat and adapt to the inevitable changes in climate. States are custodians of these resources, and citizens have an interest in how these resources are managed on their behalf. Throughout Africa, the budgets of environmental ministries are dwarfed by those of defense ministries or national security, even in countries where the major threat to security is desertification, poverty, and unemployment. It further astonishes me that those concerned with or working for the development agenda in Africa still don't acknowledge that the environment must be at the center of all solutions, just as neglect of it is at the root of our most pressing problems. The continent must wake up.
It is this prevailing mind-set that explains, in part, why Africa lags behind other developing regions in progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. If Africa does not change, not only will it not achieve the MDGs, it will also further degrade or destroy the resource base on which development depends, and in so doing exacerbate and entrench the challenges that the continent faces. No amount of advanced weaponry can fight the desert. But the problem can be overcome by planting trees and other vegetation to curb soil loss and harvest rainwater, and it is in repulsing the sands of the desert as they encroach on arable land and in fighting deforestation and climate change that the genuine battle for national and human security lies.
SAVING THE FORESTS
Just as natural resources provide the basis for human development, they also serve as a buffer against the worst effects of climate change. There is a cruel irony in the fact that the negative effects of climate change will be felt most keenly by those least responsible for creating global warming. As major polluters, the industrialized countries have a responsibility to deal with climate change at home, but also to assist Africa and the rest of the developing world to address its effects. They are in a position to share their technological know-how to reduce vulnerability and increase adaptive capacities. Mechanisms ought to be established—quickly—to raise steady and reliable funds for the prime victims of the climate crisis, who will be poor and rural, very young, and, more often than not, female. And many of them will be African.
Africans cannot reverse global warming, but they can, while calling for urgent action by the largest emitters of greenhouse gasses, do their part. Right now, most governments' forest policies are not helping matters. Africa is home to about 17 percent of the world's forests. However, around half of the planet's global deforestation has taken place on the continent, and Africa has the highest rate of deforestation in the world—currently losing approximately half a percent of its forests annually.
Industrialized countries should accept their moral duty to assist Africa and other poor regions to find alternative and renewable sources of energy—such as biomass, wind, hydropower, and solar—and enable the global South to participate in the carbon market so Africa can develop industries based on renewable energy sources. In 2007, global investors plowed $148 billion into new wind, solar, and other alternative energy initiatives.20 But those funds were almost wholly concentrated in the industrialized countries, along with some in China, India, and Brazil. Almost none of this investment is coming to Africa, despite the continent's vast energy poverty and abundant sun and wind. Africa's challenge lies in making herself a relevant beneficiary of these resources.
One exception, however, may be Algeria, which is already planning to export solar power.21 A huge $70 billion “super-grid” in the Sahara could provide Europe with up to one hundred gigawatts of clean electricity by 2050,22 while also supplying electricity for local consumption.23
Aside from further research into and development of these and other sources of energy, all nations must work to reduce their energy consumption and move beyond fossil fuels, to cut their greenhouse gas emissions from all sources, and to adopt policies so that corporations operate more responsibly wherever they are and individuals can live more sustainably. Otherwise, Africans will suffer even more from the consequences of overconsumption from peoples across the oceans. In the meantime, Africa must do her part. Indeed, it may be a good time to remind Africa that the United Nations Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy was held in Nairobi in 1981. It is a measure of the commitment to these issues that neither the hosts nor the continent followed through with investments in research and implementation. Instead, they waited for technology and the means of mitigation and adaptat
ion to be developed in continents that needed them least. Nearly three decades later, Africa finds itself in an even more vulnerable position. This trend is clearly unacceptable.
While the industrialized world can help mitigate the effects of climate change by supplying Africa with appropriate technology, the continent itself can do its part by prioritizing the protection and rehabilitation of its forests. All governments must make a concerted effort to stop unsustainable logging and find mechanisms, such as reforestation programs, whereby the poor can secure a livelihood by protecting and not degrading their environment. Well-managed, participatory tree-planting programs that serve as carbon offsets for industrial-country emissions are an important mechanism to support responsible global warming mitigation efforts in developing countries.
The Green Belt Movement, for example, is working with the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund through an Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (ERPA) to continue reforestation efforts in Mount Kenya's and the Aberdares' forests, the shamba system notwithstanding. The trees that the Green Belt Movement groups plant will, according to World Bank estimates, capture 375,000 tons of carbon dioxide by 2017. In addition, these trees will restore the health of the soil, offer habitat for biodiversity, help regulate the local climate, support regular rainfall, and provide poor, rural people with a small income.
Partnerships such as this also present a challenge to NGOs when they work with international institutions or private-sector companies, some of which may have undertaken activities that harm the environment. It is my belief that, while it would be preferable to work with partners who are holistic in their approach to the protection of the environment, the reality is that many corporations, organizations, and governments are not always doing the right thing. It is therefore necessary to work to assist in actively making a difference to the daily lives of the people in the region and, in so doing, preserving more forest.
One such project was formulated in 2006 at the annual meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Nairobi. The Green Belt Movement, UNEP, and the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAAF) launched the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign to encourage tree planting as a means of mitigating global climate change, while restoring habitats and ecosystems. Prince Albert II of Monoco and I served as patrons of the campaign. From the outset, the partner organizations were aware that for the project to succeed, a wide variety of participants, from the government through to the private sector, as well as individuals and citizen groups, would have to cooperate. The sheer scale of the action—planting one billion new trees by the end of 2007—necessitated the engagement and participation of governments, organizations, and millions of individuals. By October of that year, we had achieved our goal.
Initiatives like the Billion Tree Campaign, while essential, shouldn't provide an excuse for industrialized countries not to take serious and immediate steps to reduce their greenhouse gasses. Both developed and developing countries must take action to deal with the negative impacts of emissions. To me, this is a matter of environmental justice and the price for peace. It should be addressed more responsibly by all.
The world's forests are its lungs. Thick, healthy stands of indigenous trees absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, and hold vast reserves of carbon. As these forests are cleared for timber, agriculture, mining activities, human settlements, or commercial development, a vital element in slowing, and ultimately reversing, global warming is lost, and local, regional, and global climates will be further destabilized. In a vicious cycle, as climate change continues, forests will become more vulnerable: soils may dry up and trees die on a mass scale. At the 2007 meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, both government officials and NGOs signed on to the “Forests Now Declaration.” Its main tenet: If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change.
SAVING THE CONGO FORESTS
THE EARTH is enriched by the rain forests of Amazonia and Borneo and the taiga of northern Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia. Africa, too, has the great forests of the Congo Basin in central Africa. Nowhere else in Africa is there a greater abundance of remaining forest, or is the threat to it more pressing, than here. Conserving this region presents an extraordinary opportunity to African heads of state, the international community, and the peoples of the basin. It also requires a reimagining of what “development” means—not only across Equatorial Africa, but throughout the continent and, indeed, the world. If the three legs of the African stool are recreated here, and the seat of the stool is made broad and strong by national and international policies and action, this region could be a model for governments, international agencies, civil society, and the private sector. It is perhaps the ultimate challenge to Africa, and the world.1
The Congo Basin Rainforest Ecosystem is a vast expanse of seven hundred thousand square miles, parts of which are present principally in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville). The ecosystem constitutes a quarter of the world's remaining tropical rainforest, and provides almost a third of all of Africa's vegetation cover. The basin includes a large number of forests, as well as savannah, woodlands, and aquatic and riverine habitats. The forest and marine ecosystems of the Congo Basin contain the most biodiversity in Africa, while the region as a whole has more United Nations Natural World Heritage sites than the rest of Africa put together.
The basin holds ten thousand species of plants, of which 30 percent are endemic; over a thousand species of birds; nine hundred varieties of butterflies; four hundred mammal species; and more than two hundred species each of reptiles and amphibians. It is home to both lowland and mountain gorillas, around four thousand elephants, and nine thousand chimpanzees. It is also home to the bonobo, a highly endangered primate, and the threatened okapi, a cousin of the giraffe, and new species are still being discovered.
In addition to its wide range of biotic life, the ecosystem provides a home for perhaps up to half a million Batwa (the Pygmies), whose culture has been traced back some twenty thousand years. Indeed, evidence suggests that humans have occupied the forests of the Congo Basin for at least fifty thousand years. Today, around 50 million people from more than 150 distinct micro-nations live in the ecosystem, including small-scale farmers and hunter-gatherers; however, more than 100 million depend on the Congo Basin forests for their livelihoods, food, and shelter.
Scientists estimate that somewhere between twenty-four and thirty-four billion tons of carbon are contained within the region's forests (equivalent to four years of the current production of man-made carbon dioxide). Through their natural cycle of degradation and regeneration, the forests already release 237 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere annually. If the forests were wholly destroyed, an astonishing 135 billion tons of carbon dioxide would be released.
The science of forests here, however, is inexact. The extent of any large forest is hard to measure, not least because it contains different types of forest, with different densities and thus different masses of trees. It is also not clear how forests will respond to climate change. Should the climate become drier and warmer, a forest may release more carbon because of the decrease in moisture, but increased photosynthesis from the higher temperatures may allow forests to grow more quickly or denser, and thus store more carbon. Finally, not all forests are used in the same way—they may be clear-cut, partially logged, or sustainably harvested. If the land that was once forest is reforested, it may be able to reabsorb carbon once more, and perhaps even more efficiently.
The Congo Basin forests' effect on the climate is also not limited to the reduction or increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The forests play a major role in determining weather around the continent. Here, too, our understanding of global climatic patterns is still evolving, as are our models for determining just how the climate will change in the forthcoming decades. Here, too, the Congo Basin
provides a good example of the complexities and interconnections of the planet's weather systems.
What we know is that while up to 95 percent of the rain that falls within the Congo Basin region stays there, the basin's convection systems—the movement of moisture as it rises into the atmosphere from the transpiration and evaporation of water generated in the forest canopy and the soil—mean that the basin's rainfall patterns affect a much broader area. Indeed, scientists have discovered that Central Africa provides much of the rain for West Africa.
Just as deforestation in West Africa has affected rainfall in Central Africa, so deforestation in the Congo Basin has an impact on weather patterns, not merely locally but also throughout the continent and even beyond its shores. Scientists estimate that the cutting down of trees in the Congo Basin has led to an average 5 to 15 percent drop in the amount of rain that falls in the Great Lakes region of the United States—reaching a peak of 35 percent less each February. At the same time, rainfall has been reduced by as much as a quarter immediately north of the Black Sea.
Some models suggest that, should the entire basin be deforested, monsoon rain patterns could be affected worldwide and there would be both drier and wetter weather over the American Midwest and the southern part of central Asia, as well as central Europe. In Africa itself, experts forecast that less rain would fall over eastern and western Africa, but more over the southern areas of the DRC and southern Africa. Temperatures would rise in the region by perhaps five degrees Celsius. Some studies indicate that there would be a 30 percent increase in rainfall in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Within the Congo Basin itself, decreased rainfall patterns may result in the vegetation of some of its forests shifting to woodland or even savannah ecosystems, bringing about collapses in local biodiversity.
The Challenge for Africa Page 25