Climate South Initiative to help Africans go from bystanders to leaders in clima

If 2014 was the year of universal acknowledgment and agreement on climate change, 2015 will require those nations to put their money where their mouth is.

Thanks to a spate of highly publicized global summits and international agreements this past year, which culminated in the historic Lima Accord signed by nearly 200 nations in December, climate change has moved to the forefront of geopolitical discussion. However, pledges and promises mean little if countries are unwilling to act — by passing emission-reduction legislation, spending to protect natural resources, and developing alternative energy sources — at the national level.

Peer pressure from influential nations like China, the U.S. and heavyweight European Union members have many countries scrambling to push forward with climate-friendly legislation this spring. Ultimately, pro-climate fight nations are looking for a universal and lasting commitment to climate by December, when the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015 will pass a new climate change protocol.

Out of this climate milieu came the Climate South Initiative, an effort to help African nations, long considered bystanders in the global climate discussions, cope with these new expectations. Organized by Richard Attias & Associates, the same group behind the New York Forum AFRICA, another pan-African summit that will hold its fourth annual forum this year, the Climate South Initiative is intended to empower African nations to take a leadership role in tackling climate’s effects.

The Initiative will be held Libreville, Gabon, the same location as NYFA and two days before that signature event. The event will be a chance to exchange ideas and learn from other “South-South” nations, like Brazil and Indonesia, who have enacted effective climate change legislation in similar circumstances to many African nations. The initiative’s aim is to help African nations see how an active role in climate activism can be not only beneficial to rest of the globe, but also help the domestic and African continent thrive — socially and economically.

Moreover, developing nations — which constitute most of the continent — are often at greater risk than developed ones because of the threat to precious natural resources (a great source of wealth in Africa) and the destructive potential in nations with makeshift infrastructure and poor emergency response. And Africa is more at risk than nearly anyone other than the island archipelagos. According to a report from the Global Adaptation Index that takes into account 46 external and internal factors, eight of the 10 most at-risk nations to climate change are located in Africa. Africa is in a double-bind: Many of its nations are exposed to the calamitous effects of warming temperatures, while also lacking the infrastructure to respond to disasters as quickly as they might.

Take a closer look at Gabon for an example. The Climate South Initiative host is, by comparison, actually one of the safer nations in Africa, but it is not immune to climate change. The nation is angling to grow its eco-tourism sector, but the nation, more than 80% of which is covered by tropical rainforest, must address climate change and better protect its environment before it can achieve its goal of eco-tourism leader.

As nations around the world take action to reduce emissions and improve their respective relationship with the climate in 2015, Africa will no longer be the continent left behind as climate change sweeps the globe. With the introduction of the Climate South Initiative, Africa’s political and business leaders will have a forum by which to collaborate, associate and adopt new principles to combat climate disaster.