Africa’s Climate Compensation Call: The Intersection of Historical Debts and Realistic Demand
Photo: The president of Kenya, William Ruto (centre), surrounded by other African leaders, delivers his closing speech at the summit. Photograph Simon MainaAFPGetty Images
Though Africa has contributed the least to global warming (less than 4% of the world’s carbon emission), it has suffered the worst extreme climate shocks, from desertification in the Sahel to devastating drought in Southern Africa. Since the pre-industrial period, average temperatures in Africa have risen by about 1.4°C, compared with a global average warming of about 1.1°C. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) 2024 report, monitored wildlife populations in Africa have declined by an average of 76% over the past 50 years, and about 10% of species in North Africa are threatened with extinction. In fact, Africans are not indifferent to the climate crisis— on average, African countries lose between 2% to 5% of their GDP each year dealing with the consequences of extreme environmental events, which devastated their already tight treasuries. Africa should not be left to shoulder these consequences alone — they are the results of environmental and economic disruptions caused by colonial rule. Most directly, the resource exploitations and environmental destructions during the colonial period are still influencing Africa’s environment. During colonial rule, European powers promoted monocropping and large-scale extraction in Africa to meet their own industrial needs. This mode leads to over-exploitation of land, deforestation and destruction of ecosystems. France’s promotion of peanut cultivation in West Africa has resulted in extensive land desertification, and the Sahel region remains one of the most severely degraded regions globally. During the Belgian colonization of the Congo (1885-1960), the colonizers cut down large amounts of rainforest for rubber and ivory, leading to soil degradation in the Congo Basin, and the risk of flooding in modern time increased significantly because of that. Similar examples were just countless, but these were just the most direct distortions. The structural and social impacts were sometimes neglected. The slave trade during the 15th to 16th centuries resulted in the loss of 12 million young labor forces in Africa, which destroyed the sustainable development patterns of traditional agrarian societies. For instance, the Niger Delta is more vulnerable to droughts due to the lack of labor forces and the abandonment of traditional irrigation system. There was also much indigenous ecological knowledge being lost (including shifting cultivation, community forest protection) during the colonization through repression. For example, the traditional seasonal grazing patterns of the Maasai in Kenya were banned by the colonists, leading to overgrazing and desertification of the grasslands.
