“A universal instrument dedicated to combat climate change through mitigation and adaptation measures broken down into relevant actions and investments as part of this combat.”
This is how the Minister of Environment, Protection of Nature and Sustainable Development of Cameroon begins the preface of the document presenting the assessment of the five-year implementation of the Paris Agreement in Cameroon. By defining an urgent need which is the continuation of a joint initiative that began in 1995 in Berlin, to assess the progress made in the fight against climate change, and to define new objectives together over time, because it is a problem that involves everyone.
No one can say that he is immune to the effects generated by climate change. All continents are affected, and this is not a figment of the imagination. The facts speak for themselves. The Tuvalu archipelago in Oceania which is a member State of the United Nations, is threatened with extinction by rising waters; the 2023 state of the Climate in Asia report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) stated that in 2023, many countries in the Asian region experienced their hottest year on record, while specifying that between 1961 and 1990, the rate of warming in this part of the globe almost doubled; forest fires in Europe and North America, and the Sudano-Sahelian, coastal, and forest agro-ecological zones threatened by floods and droughts in Cameroon, especially when the drought period is prolonged, clearly testify to the fact that the planet is threatened, and no one is spared.
And even if everyone suffers from the consequences of global warming, the poorest countries of the planet suffer much from that critical situation, which is not new, but which has intensified following the industrial revolutions of 1769, notably with the creation of the first steam engine, which had coal as its energy source, and the one that goes from 1850 to 1914, and which was characterized in particular by technological innovations, and the development of the chemical and petroleum industries. It is especially following these two major historical landmarks that countries began to take the issue of global warming more seriously, because if humans have always thought that all natural resources are inexhaustible, the results of scientific research have demonstrated the opposite, by certifying that the temperature changes that we observe on a global scale, are partly due to human activities. We say this because between 1884 and 1990, we went from a supposition to certainty, notably thanks to the creation and first publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There is no longer any doubt. The Earth continues to warm. Hence the recurrence of concerted meetings each year, in order to counter a global threat, thanks to a synergy of action initiated at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, as a prelude to the 1995 meeting in Berlin.
If rich countries must make more efforts, particularly in term of finances and technology transfer, United Nations members must also depending on the contexts which correspond to a set of particular circumstances, make efforts at their level, and depending to the means at their disposal, in order to implement a series of beneficial actions both locally and internationally, because there are countries that depend much more on the efforts undertaken by others. Indeed, the considerable nature of the needs is well beyond the means that many countries are able to mobilize. During the sharing and information meeting organised in Cameroon for the implementation of the Paris agreement between 2015 and 2020, thirty project ideas contained in ten programmes were identified in collaboration with all partners. The cost of the implementation of these actions has been estimated at 27. 132 billion CFA Francs by 2035, including 1.089 billion CFA Francs for adaptation actions during the five years (2016-2020). And "Compared to the 27,132 billion needed to honour its commitments between 2015 and 2020, Cameroon has mobilized only 117.56 billion, or about 0.4%."
Faced with enormous needs, the limited means justify the definition of short, medium and long-term priorities because, depending on the context, not everyone is able to mobilize even half of the necessary means to cope with the effects generated by climate change. And without a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the world's largest economies, the situation will always remain worrying because adaptability requires compliance with firm commitments from the biggest polluters to be more effective. The seriousness of the situation therefore justifies the need for collective action, which requires a firm commitment from each State to act at the local level, in order to keep the increase of global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius, while striving to limit this increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. If the solution to reduce the harmful effects generated by climate change were simply to exploit more renewable energy sources like wind and solar for example, the situation would be less worrying than it is now. But given that the world's most polluting countries are the ones investing the most in renewable and sustainable energy, and the ones investing massively in the creation of data centres, which are sources of pollution that use excessive amounts of electrical energy, which produces heat, and require constant air humidification to prevent electrostatic discharges that can damage servers, It must be said that we are not ready to get out of this critical situation. Instead of producing more and polluting less, we produce more and pollute more, while implementing alternative measures which are not always accompanied by compliance with firm commitments, so that the effectiveness of these alternative measures be more significant.
Digital technology is therefore a source of pollution and global warming among many others, and in particular the heavy use of fossil fuels, which requires the biggest polluters in particular to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to mitigate the negative impact of climate change in the rest of the world. And given that this project will take time, and will always depends above all on the determination of each country to save a common home, each country, particularly developing countries, must in the meantime find ways and means to adapt to a situation that is causing enormous damage around the world. Hence the ambition of the Cameroon State to restore degraded forest landscapes by 2030, continue the implementation of a renewable energy development program, and produce and disseminate climate information via climate assessments and ten-year assessments.
These projects like many others could not have been initiated without the help of external partners. Indeed, of the 111.85 billion CFA Francs mobilized between 2015 and 2020 for the implementation of the Paris Agreements in Cameroon, even if it is noted that 25.5% of the resources were mobilized at international level, and 74.5% at national level, it should be noted that the 74.5% include loans contracted within the framework of bilateral agreements with friendly countries. This means that Cameroon cannot resolve or achieve its short- and medium-term objectives without the help of international partners. They are the necessary condition for Cameroon's adaptation to climate change to be more significant. It is in this perspective that the project to improve, anticipate and manage food and nutritional crises initiated by the NGO Action Against Hunger is also situated. This initiative, funded by the European Commission for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO), has enabled the populations of the locality of Mora in the Far North Region of Cameroon to react to climate risks and not remain resigned victims of a global problem. The reinforcement of the banks of the Mayo Goua Balaré through the construction of a 1.5 m high and 200 meter long dike has enabled the development of food crops along the banks of the seasonal watercourse, thanks to a protection belt for plots developed by the community, in addition to the development of market gardening activities downstream of the watercourse. Thanks to initiatives of this kind, populations have the means to adapt in areas where threats are recurrent.
And since international partners are not able to fill all the gaps, Cameroon, like many others, will always be very dependent on external funding which will not always meet the needs; developing countries will therefore always have to find the means to cope with climate change by themselves. Indeed, when we know that an area is a risk zone, we must already do everything possible to ensure that there are no more losses of human life because natural disasters, especially floods caused by global warming, have no friends. We must therefore further strengthen alert systems, in order to always inform the populations of risk zones in time, and implement alternative solutions, the time to resolve situations that often force those who do not want to live elsewhere, to start from scratch.
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