The inaugural Africa Climate Summit, held in Nairobi, Kenya, has called for a global carbon tax to tackle climate change.

The leaders at the summit expressed concern that many African countries face disproportionate burdens and risks from climate change-related, unpredictable weather events and patterns, and yet the major polluters are not committing resources to help poorer nations.

Underlining that Africa was not historically responsible for global warming, but bore the brunt of its effect, impacting lives, livelihoods, and economies, the leaders emphasised that the continent possessed the potential and the ambition to be a vital component of the global solution to climate change.

“We note that multilateral finance reform is necessary but not sufficient to provide the scale of climate financing the world needs to achieve 45 per cent emission reduction required to meet the Paris 2030 agreements, without which keeping global warming to 1.5 per cent will be in serious jeopardy,” the Declaration said, noting that, “Additionally, that the scale of financing required to unlock Africa’s climate positive growth is beyond the borrowing capacity of national balance sheets.”

The African leaders further called for the acceleration of on-going initiatives to reform the multilateral financial system and global financial architecture including the Bridgetown Initiative, the Accra-Marrakech Agenda, the UN Secretary General’s SDG Stimulus Proposal and the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.

The Nairobi Declaration was adopted to be the basis for Africa’s common position in the global climate change process to COP 28 and beyond.

Share Story: