Kenyan President William Ruto has urged African leaders who are attending the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi to see the climate crisis as a unique opportunity for the continent to attract billions of dollars in investment.
Organisers say they anticipate hundreds of millions of dollars in deals to be announced at the three-day summit, during which they aim to showcase Africa as a destination for climate investment rather than a victim of floods, drought and famine.
African leaders are pushing market-based financing instruments such as carbon credits in a bid to mobilize funding that they say has been slow to arrive from rich-world donors.
“For a very long time we have looked at this as a problem. It is time we flipped and looked it from the other side,” Ruto told delegates.
“We must see in green growth not just a climate imperative but also a fountain of multi-billion dollar economic opportunities that Africa and the world is primed to capitalise,” he said.
Many African campaigners, however, have opposed the summit’s approach to climate finance, saying it advances Western priorities at the expense of the continent.
They say carbon credits, which allow polluters to offset emissions by funding green activities, are a pretext for wealthier countries and corporations to continue polluting.