Kenya has opened a school to train activists who will push big polluters alongside their host governments in the West to pay for impacts on poor people.
African nations note that extreme weather events such as severe droughts are aggravated by pollution and they affect poor nations the most, yet they contribute the least to the climate crisis.
However, few activists and negotiators deeply understand this concept, called climate justice, which frames global warming as an ethical issue rather than a purely environmental one.
The training comes ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties talks in the United Kingdom in November.
The Nairobi Summer School on Climate Justice, based at the Kenyatta University, is now expected to prepare negotiators for the critical UN discussions.
Sylvia Wachira, coordinator of the school, said trainings in the global north do not adequately represent the contexts and challenges of frontline communities.
“These programmes do not successfully blend the contexts and concerns of indigenous communities, smallholder farmers, fisher folk, women and youth, among others, who constitute the majority of people affected by the collective failures to act decisively on climate change,” she said.
She said the school is targeting young activists in the global south.
More than 700 participants have already enrolled in the school, which is partly supported by the Swedish and Dutch governments and several universities in Africa.
Mithika Mwenda, the executive director of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (Pacja), a co-founder of the school, said grassroots communities are currently missing in climate justice discussions.
“As it is now, academics and philanthropists from the global north generally shape the narratives and debates on climate justice with limited presence and representation of global south,” said Mwenda.
Pacja is a consortium of more than 1,000 organisations from 48 African countries and is the leading climate justice lobby on the continent.
“Importantly, the voices of frontline communities, who bear the devastating impacts of climate change, continue to miss out from climate justice debates. This is what we want changed,” said Mwenda.
Dr Pacifica Ogola, director of climate change at the Ministry of Environment, while opening the school on Monday, said industrialization should happen without undermining the human rights on job provision and development.
“The government is fully involved in discussions around Just transition,” she said.
Rich nations have continued to renege on their promises to pay for adverse effects linked to climate change in non-industrialised countries.
For instance, at the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, rich nations pledged they will contribute $100 billion a year to a Green Climate Fund to help poorer countries reduce emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.
So far, only $7.5 million has been contributed to the fund’s coffers so far, according to various estimates.
