Climate Activists, Thanks for the Reminders, But Something is Amiss.

Climate activism has always reminded us of the disproportionate impacts that Africa and other vulnerable continents feel in the wake of a changing climate, although doing this paints these continents to be helpless. Moreover, it seems to blame climate change for all the societal challenges without considering other vices that essentially is accentuating the impacts of climate change in these vulnerable settings.??Thank you for the reminder, but it is full of pessimism, oblivion, and ignorance of the huge potential akin to these continents and their people. These continents are home to the most resilient and knowledgeable people you can imagine. The issue is that their abilities and capacities to adapt have been compromised and their resilience eroded by other underlying forces that are either endogenous or external and addressing this will put them in the path of recovery and resilience once again.

What many climate activists fail to understand is that resilience is a function of a people’s ability to self-organize, ability to buffer disturbances, and the capacity and willingness to learn and adapt to changes in the environment which is the opposite of vulnerability (Tompkins et al. 2005) and of importance to understand is that these peoples' abilities have been put to test by other circumstances that are not entirely related to climate change, which comes in only to make it worse. Vulnerability to climate is a notion that oftentimes climate activists fail to address, maybe they ignore or rather do not understand, whichever way, they feel that Africa and a few other continents are the only vulnerable continents, however, this is not true. Vulnerability has a myriad of characteristics including it being scale-dependent, multi-dimensional, and unique. In this sense, every continent is vulnerable in its own unique way, but what matters is how these continents will react to the set of challenges they face which is a function of its exposure, sensitivity, and its adaptive capacities. This explains why when Flash floods strike the United States of America the losses will be lower when compared to a situation where similar floods hit a South Asian or African country. These are some of the key tenets that activists fail to incorporate in their good reminders.

I personally do not completely subscribe to the general conclusion that Africa and a few other continents are unfairly feeling the brunt of climate change impacts. Well it is true we are feeling the most, but is it because we are Africa and we have not been contributing to the causes of climate change? This blame game is the reason behind all this lack of seriousness when it comes to climate change redress and even failure to secure climate finances. Oftentimes in the media, you hear everyone talking about climate finance and the quest to impel the so-called high emitters of GHGs to compensate for their contribution to this menace which is a good thing as everyone should be held accountable. However, the last time I checked money is not the issue essentially. Africa for instance receives $133.7 billion every year in foreign aid (New Internationalist, 2018). But how this money is utilized is questionable as many people continue living in tottering settlements, inequalities exist, there is poor infrastructure, poverty rates are at a new high, economies are undiversified which in essence exacerbates vulnerabilities and that is why we feel the most of the climate change impacts. This really begs the question, is it all about the lack of finances? To me, even climate activism, despite being an invaluable eye-opener and reminder, continues obscuring the main point. We are missing the point, lack of finances is just a piece of the bigger puzzle, but what if we get the finances, will we have solved all this?

If I were to digress a bit, Africa is home to the youngest population in the world, full of ideas, ingenuity, and potential blessed with enormous resources that include agriculturally productive land, but as Munang (2018:22) puts it “ingenuity and potential in an individual only represent opportunity, which is not enough to achieve transformation and if not harnessed will remain a missed opportunity”, for far too long we’ve been missing this opportunity as our youthful and energetic population have not been fully utilizing their skills and expertise. These are some of the potential areas that if we can leverage, we will be able to address the climate challenges. I weep for my beautiful Africa as a large population of its people is sleeping hungry, and the media, as well as the activists, will be quick to conclude that climate change is behind all this. Unfortunately, the reality is that due to lack of value-addition and poor infrastructure, most of the produce from agriculture which represents our comparative advantages end up as post-harvest losses driving food poverty and hunger and finally conflict over resources. In the end, climate change which is just a risk multiplier will be the main victim to be blamed for all this.

The $100 Billion dollars we are seeking as climate finance each year for instance is meant to support mitigation and adaptation efforts, but the big question is, are the proposed interventions watertight? Are they a panacea to the challenges that our people face? Is it going to address existing inequalities, is it going to address conflicts over resources? how about corruption bedeviling our institutions? These are some of the background noises that the climate activism debate fails or rather ignores yet pose a big challenge to progress, development, and even the fight against climate change.

Oftentimes, if you are to analyze the direction that the climate change activism discourse is taking, you will realize that they all talk about mitigation. Well, this is a good call but as it stands, any intervention should focus on sustainability, that is responding to the needs of the current as well as the future generations. There is no point in securing a future if no one will be in that future. We need to address both current and future issues around climate change and this calls for a balance between mitigation and adaptation. My argument is that addressing climate change must take a multi-pronged strategy that respects the unique characteristics of vulnerabilities. It must address all the dimensions of vulnerability and work around its functions to balance the trade-offs and the synergies involved. Additionally, we need to question ourselves, what are we doing wrongly? We need to stop the blame games and be objective and serious enough. No one will ever take us seriously when we are living in a system that cannot account for its actions and resource use. Let’s strive to address all the issues that make us susceptible to the sweeping impacts of climate change. As for the climate activists, THANKS FOR THE REMINDERS, but the last time I checked playing the victims card is not going to provide solutions. As you are championing climate justice, do not forget about Equality, Education, Poverty, and other inherent noises that if not addressed will always be a thorn in the foot of climate debate.

References

Tompkins, E.L. and Adger, W.N., 2004. Does adaptive management of natural resources enhance resilience to climate change?.?Ecology and society,?9(2).

Munang, R., 2018.?Making Africa Work Through the Power of Innovative Volunteerism. AuthorHouse.

SHOULD THE WEST STOP GIVING AID TO AFRICA? ,. 2018. Retrived from : Debate: Stop giving aid to Africa? | New Internationalist