The global leader’s summit held in Paris, France housed many African leaders in participation among which are President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria, President of Zambia Hakainde Hichilema, and President William Ruto of Kenya to mention but a few. Of particular interest is Kenyan President Ruto’s post made on his official tweeter account where he charged all leaders including himself to adhere to global climate change.
Ruto also stated his reason for coming to Paris for the gathering was not to sort for help but to be part of the solution to the problem.
He said I came to Paris climate summit “not to ask for help” from the rich countries, but to ensure that a reform of the global financial architecture enables developing countries to “take part in the solution,”
“The current financial architecture is unfair, punitive, and inequitable”, said William Ruto.
“The countries of the South pay up to eight times more interest than developed countries because they are considered risky”, said the Kenyan president, who wants to attract private investment rather than development aid.
“We are tired of this narrative” that portrays Africans as “victims of climate change”, “looking for favors” and “lamenting”, explains Mr. Ruto: “We are not asking for help, we want to be part of the solution”.
We are calling for a new multilateral climate change action mechanism financed from global carbon taxes on fossil fuel, aviation, marine transport, among other transactions, to fund decarbonisation, adaptation and nature protection and regeneration. Such is a bold step that the… pic.twitter.com/tPaMe8AogY
— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) June 22, 2023
To accomplish this, he contends, the IMF and the World Bank must be modified, how developing nations handle their debt must be reconsidered, and new fair international tariffs must be established (on shipping, air travel, or financial activities).
In Kenya, “we pay around 10 billion dollars every year to honor our debt,” he says. If we were to use it instead for the country’s development, it would be an immediate redirection of immense resources, and it would have an enormous impact” on the energy transition, health, electrification, etc. To achieve this, all we need to do is to “get the international community to take action”.
To achieve this, he explains that we must “convert the money we were supposed to pay to the World Bank, the IMF, and all the other lenders into a 50-year loan facility with a 20-year grace period,” he explains.
“While we continue to point the finger at each other, the world is burning”, he emphasized, referring to humanity’s delay in reducing its emissions to the level of the objectives of the Paris Agreement, due to a lack of investment to finance development away from fossil fuels.
“We don’t want to say, ‘it’s the North’s fault, they’re the greenhouse gas emitters’. That’s also true, but we don’t want to go down that road” because “today we’re all in the doldrums,” he says.
Addressing youth on climate change and financing at the Champs de Mars, Paris, France. pic.twitter.com/cCPxD93HC2
— William Samoei Ruto, PhD (@WilliamsRuto) June 23, 2023
However, some African leaders condemned the North’s willingness to provide billions for a Ukraine ravaged by war. William Ruto responds, saying, “This is nothing compared to the existential threat posed to the entire world by climate change,” and urges us to “put aside all other problems to tackle it together.”
