Doha exposes Africa’s lack of commitment in tackling climate change impact

The Doha Amendment to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol was about to be declared a stillborn treaty on October 2 before Nigeria became the 144th country to ratify it. But it still has under three months to survive; it will cease to breathe by January 1. Doha needed 144 of the 192 Kyoto signatories to come into force after 90 days.

Under Kyoto, 37 developed countries were required to reduce overall greenhouse gases by at least five per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.  They did not.

A year before its expiry, African countries fought hard to save it from dying on their soil at the 2011 Climate Change Conference in South Africa. Parties agreed to amend and extend it to December 31, 2020, birthing the Doha deal that was signed in Qatar in 2012.

Under Doha, countries were collectively required to cut emissions by 18 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. But it generated little enthusiasm as the biggest air polluters, like China and United States, were not in the list. The US has never ratified Kyoto while China is a developing country.

During the 2014 UN Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, African negotiators accused the developed countries of dragging their feet. Being the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts, it was widely expected that all African nations would ratify Doha within a year or two. Ironically, only four countries — South Africa, Sudan, Morocco and Kenya — had by the end of 2014.

Kenya was the ninth party to the Kyoto Protocol.

Several African countries — including Tanzania, Burundi, Mozambique, Cameroon, Chad and Tunisia did not even bother to ratify the Doha deal. Had all African countries signed up in less than two years, it would have been a strong show of commitment to climate change fight.

Shrinking harvests

Studies indicate that harvest for most farmed crops in Africa — wheat, maize, soybeans, rice, barley, sugar, cassava, cotton, groundnuts, millet, potatoes, sorghum and sweet potatoes — will shrink in the next decades due to frequent droughts. This is because the continent is largely dependent on rain-fed agriculture.

Climate change will also increase conflicts over scarce resources and worsen the severity of climate-sensitive diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and cholera.

Africa accounts for only 2-3 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, mostly from energy and industrial sources, but it bears the brunt of climate change impact.

The continent should, therefore, rise to the occasion and demand that leading emitters take appropriate action by cutting greenhouse gas pollution. It should no longer be business as usual.

Mr Onyango, a reporter with the Nation and Taifa Leo, is a Climate Change Adaptation Master's student at the University of Nairobi. Email: [email protected].