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Donald Trump’s electoral victory would lead to a return to policies that led 110 million Africans to face humanitarian and environmental crises, writes Nathaniel Mong’are in a Tribune on Euronews.
African policymakers are preparing for the return of Donald Trump. After sweeping the Republican primaries, polls consistently place the former American leader neck and neck with outgoing President Joe Biden in a presidential rematch.
Yet a Donald Trump victory could end up guaranteeing climate disaster for Africa and the world, and Europe must take note.
Of course, most African leaders have in mind the undisguised racism of Donald Trump, which was illustrated by his insulting remarks against African nations in 2018.
It had also gutted almost all climate finance from dedicated USAID programs in Africa – programs initiated under Barack Obama that were crucial to promoting climate resilience by arming African governments with technology, finance and support to fight climate change.
The program’s departure – although it has shown signs of recent recovery under Joe Biden’s leadership – marked lost years and directly contributed to the worsening humanitarian and environmental crisis that now affects more than 110 millions of Africans.
But what happens in Africa will not stay in Africa. Climate change will intensify migration, instead of weakening it.
American patriots who want secure borders would do well to recognize that the only way to achieve that is to support African nations in their fight against climate change.
Climate failure will worsen the exploitation of grievances
This is why Europeans should also recognize that the return of Donald Trump is a wake-up call.
It represents a new and dangerous transatlantic far-right movement that exploits growing grievances over economic challenges that are ultimately linked to our chronic dependence on fossil fuels – which has locked us into an inflationary economic crisis.
Trumpist tactics are designed to distract public attention from this reality, but they are used across the EU by far-right parties ranging from the AfD in Germany to Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in the Netherlands. Down. This requires a concerted response, not confused appeasement.
Progressive parties in America and Europe must help voters understand that climate failure will set their future on fire. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, maintaining the status quo will result in the creation of 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.
If Americans and Europeans worry about migrants today, climate change will make this problem an insoluble challenge. This is why the EU must not make the same mistakes as President Joe Biden on climate action.
Either way, Washington doesn’t take things seriously
Under President Joe Biden, we have seen a record explosion in the number of oil and gas drilling permits – even more than under President Donald Trump – which has coincided with a massive new ad campaign in favor of the use increased use of fossil fuels, launched by the American Petroleum Institute.
This approach is at odds with US statements at the UN COP28 climate summit held last year in the United Arab Emirates.
The United States has publicly flirted with the idea of phasing out fossil fuels and signed the historic “UAE Consensus” aiming to abandon fossil fuels and triple renewable energy production capacity by 2030.
The United States also fell asleep at the wheel when COP28 broke new ground by operationalizing a long-awaited loss and damage fund to provide rapid support to countries in the Global South in the event of a disaster. The United States has pledged only 16.1 million euros, paling in embarrassing comparison with other contributions from Norway (22.9 million euros), Denmark (45.8 million euros ) and the United Arab Emirates (91.6 million euros).
And of course, Joe Biden himself was conspicuous by his absence at COP28.
The EU, however, risks following the same path, providing 205 billion euros for new investments in gas, while continuing to offer paltry support for climate investments in the Global South.
ADVERTISEMENTEither we mobilize billions or we will suffer the same fate
At the ministerial meeting of the International Energy Agency (IEA) held in Paris in early February, politicians from the United States and the European Union said little billions needed to support clean energy in Africa and elsewhere.
It was only a week later, during his first speech at the IEA headquarters in Paris after COP28, that climate summit chair Dr Sultan Al Jaber tackled this elephant in the room.
Urging governments and businesses to take action “unprecedented measures” To accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, he cited the launch at COP28 of Altérra, the world’s largest private investment vehicle for climate action, as a model to “reproduce many times over. The world must raise the bar to meet the challenges we face – by mobilizing trillions rather than trillions”.
He also asked industries to “decarbonize on a large scale” while calling on governments to invest heavily in expanding national grids so they can absorb new renewable energy projects at a sustained pace.
This is exactly the entrepreneurial mindset that European policymakers need to adopt today. And they must prioritize unlocking trillions of dollars in climate finance for the Global South.
ADVERTISEMENTIf it fails to do so, not only will Africa find itself in the heart of a climate disaster, but it will lay the foundations for an unprecedented global migrant crisis that could be a gift to the far right.
Whatever fate awaits Africa, it will soon come to the shores of the United States and Europe.
But the reality is that Africans want to prosper in Africa. It is therefore time for Western, and European in particular, leaders to create a new unifying vision for a shared future of clean prosperity – or to reckon with the end of the European experiment.
Nathaniel Mong’are is a Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya. He also helped organize the first ever Africa Climate Week in Kenya in 2023.
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