{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Give me a dollar each, I’ll chase climate change away - Comment
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Give me a dollar each, I'll chase climate change away
East Africa is bracing for some angry rains, thanks to El Nino, but it has also gone through some very serious drought already.
Ethiopia is seeing its worst drought since the catastrophic 1984-85 one when anything between 400,000 and one million people starved to death.
After being washed away by floods early this year, parts of Southern Africa — especially Botswana and Namibia — are also going through their worst drought in 25 years. This year, after decades, a heat wave killed dozens of people in Sudan and Egypt.
There are arguments as to whether the gods are just angry with us, or it's climate change doing its thing.
What is not in dispute is that, as usual, Africa is being short-changed.
Africa today contributes just two per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, but suffers most from the impact of climate change — and is moreover being penalised for it.
The other day, the new African Development Bank president, Akinwumi Adesina, was complaining on our behalf, saying Africa was not getting its fair share of the $62 billion of climate funding.
The reason for it is, well, funny. Climate funds pay basically for two things. One is "mitigation," which means cutting carbon emissions. The second is "adaptation," meaning preparing for the extreme weather events and natural disasters that will be caused by rising global temperatures.
As Adesina explained it, 76 per cent of climate funding is dedicated to mitigation. It is like 78 per cent of your insurance being spent to take you to hospital, and only 22 per cent on treating you while you are in the hospital bed.
However, as we wait on the December climate change meetings in Paris, and whether we will get the pledges on $100 billion a year to fight global warming, East Africa collectively, or smart countries alone, should do something.
I think the time for a climate change tax has arrived. Unlike all other taxes, this would be the fairest because we each, in our own way, put pressure on the environment.
The problem with a climate change tax is that, like other moneys, it would be stolen or wasted on bureaucratic expenses.
One of the first things we need to do is to set up a global institution, headquartered in a quiet corner of Norway or Sweden, to keep the climate tax money. Call it the Climate Change Capital Enterprise, so it sounds like a serious private sector entity, not a "commission" or "agency."
Mechanisms would be set up for the taxes to paid directly to CCCE. It would also handle payouts to deal with the climate change fallout in contributing countries. The climate change tax would be small; just one US dollar for every able adult a month.
Now let's say there are 50 million such adults in the East African Community. That's $50 million a month, $600 million a year, and $1.2 billion in two years. With or without other global climate change funds, there is no environmental disaster in East Africa that big money like that can't help ease.
And if there is no disaster and we draw down on the fund for five years, the region will have $6 billion in a Nordic ice hole somewhere. What is wrong with that?
Charles Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com). Twitter@cobbo3
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