Page 4 - AfrElec Week 08 2022

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec

The EU and Africa: on the

road to COP27

THE EU failed to achieve a number of concrete and targets African priorities will be key to its
AFRICA climate breakthroughs at the recent EU-AU success.
summit, making it difficult for Europe to deliver The conference’s final declaration encourages
on its climate change commitments to Africa by EU countries to increase pledges to contribute to
the time of COP27 in Egypt in November. the global goal of at least $100bn per year.
Climate think-tank E3G said that the sum- So far, EU member states have pledged $13bn
mit was a chance for both sides to rebuild trust per year. They made no additional contribution
by demonstrating that this partnership is one of during the summit.
equals. It was highlighted that the involvement of
With the African continent at the heart of African institutions in the use of SDRs would be
the climate negotiations this year, the EU has set essential for the region’s recovery.
itself the task of reshaping its relationship with However, the IMF suggests that SDRs cannot
the African Union. The EU-AU Summit was the be channelled via regional development banks,
first opportunity to do so, said E3G. showing further discussions will be needed to
Issues at stake include deeper recognition of address this topic.
the need to support Africa with climate impacts On the other hand, the AU referred to gas
and indebtedness, a co-development of just tran- as an essential element for a just transition and
sition and energy packages and developing resil- electricity access across Africa, which remains a
ient infrastructure. clear barrier for development. Given the central-
In many ways the conference made some ity of development outcomes but disagreement
progress, although there are still some barriers around the role of fossil fuels, the EU and AU
to success. need to strengthen their partnership for a fair
An investment package of at least €150bn energy transition.
to increase the resilience and sustainability of More worryingly, there was not progress on
African economies was announced. However, several issues that are holding back green devel-
financing details were not. opment in Africa and exposing it to climate risk.
Ensuring the initiative is of added value Africa is the most vulnerable continent to

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