Sept. 4, 2023, 4:33 p.m.

More than a dozen African leaders are set to attend the first-ever African Climate Summit as the continent seeks to have a stronger say in global existential issues to which it has contributed the least. .

The government of President William Ruto of Kenya and the African Union met in Nairobi on Monday, determined to exert more global influence and provide more funding and support.
“We have been thinking about this for a long time. He spoke of the ideals of shared natural resources and shared prosperity. "We are not here to list complaints." There remains some dissatisfaction across the continent. It has failed to do so with much of the support promised to Africa.

“This is our time,” Mitika Mwenda of the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance said at a rally, noting that the annual flow of climate aid to the African continent is less than a tenth of what is needed, and that Africa claimed to be "just a fraction" of the budget. Some polluting companies.
“We have an abundance of clean, renewable energy, and it is important to harness it to power our future prosperity. We need funding from countries," Mohamed Adoh of Power Shift Africa said ahead of the summit.

Meanwhile, the advocacy group ONE Campaign said in a report released ahead of the summit that high interest rates and a lack of adequate capital from institutions such as the World Bank have led to increasingly persistent debt levels in low-income countries. It has become impossible and has warned that funding has been significantly delayed. - Necessary climate solution.

"This means lower health and social spending, as well as an inability to harness vast resources to provide solutions to climate change," the report said.

Attendees from outside Africa included John Kerry, the US government's head of climate change affairs, and António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, who said, ``The seriousness of the climate crisis He said he would tackle the financial issue as one of the "big injustices".

In 2020, he said more than $83 billion in climate finance went to poor countries, a 4% increase over the previous year, but he is still short of his $100 billion annual target for 2009. .
“When countries like ours hold conferences, 'we should lead by example,' says local environmental activist Isaac Kahlua.

Kenya derives 93 percent of its electricity from renewable energy and has banned single-use plastic bags, but struggles with other climate-friendly adjustments.

Unlike the usual government convoy, Ruto left for Monday's event in a small electric vehicle. He drove through the streets avoiding ill-maintained buses and vans that sometimes spewed smoke.

Despite Africa's great potential for solar and other renewable energy, almost 600 million people on the continent have no access to electricity. Another challenge for Africa is that it can simply turn a blind eye