Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The Congo basin the world's biggest tropical carbon sink, is
Speaker 2: at risk if defour station doesn't stop. Bold, urgent and
Speaker 2: innovative actions are needed to prevent forests from turning from
Speaker 2: carbon sinks into sources of emissions.
Speaker 3: Without stable and the resilient and forest carbon sinks, the
Speaker 3: global goal or limiting temperature rise two one point five
Speaker 3: becomes untenable.
Speaker 2: The report from scientists at COP thirty is the latest
Speaker 2: warning about efforts to tackle a climate crisis that is
Speaker 2: already hitting African nations hard.
Speaker 4: Those who have contributed the least to climate change are
Speaker 4: paying the highest price. Our populations are hit by floods,
Speaker 4: extreme droughts, erosion and food insecurity. Meanwhile, the funding remain
Speaker 4: insufficiently fragmented, too often mistargeted.
Speaker 5: Fag Monte Mazibli.
Speaker 2: On today's episode of The Next Africa Podcast, we'll look
Speaker 2: at this threat to the Congo Basin, why saving it matters,
Speaker 2: and the state of the global response to climate.
Speaker 5: Change in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: I'm Jennifer's Abisaja and this is the Next Africa Podcast,
Speaker 2: bringing you one story each week from the continent, driving
Speaker 2: the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg
Speaker 2: can provide. Our senior reporter Anthony Squisine, who's been reporting
Speaker 2: the story for Bloomberg News, joins us now along with
Speaker 2: our Bloomberg Opinion climate columnist Lara Williams. Thank you both
Speaker 2: for joining us this week. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Anthony.
Speaker 2: Let's just start with you, because I believe you and
Speaker 2: I have actually been at a COP summit before, so
Speaker 2: you know, it's always interesting to sort of take a
Speaker 2: look at what we've seen in the past and where
Speaker 2: we're at right now. Brazil, though they've just heard this
Speaker 2: stark warning about the Congo Basin, maybe you can give
Speaker 2: us a bit of a detail about what exactly we're
Speaker 2: talking about here and what the concern is.
Speaker 5: The Science Panel for the Congo Basin, which is a
Speaker 5: relatively newly formed group, has decided to use the COCK
Speaker 5: Summit in Belem to launch its first reports on the
Speaker 5: state of the Congo Basin, which my area is the
Speaker 5: second biggest tropical forest in the world, but it's actually
Speaker 5: the world's biggest tropical carbon sink, which means it absorbs
Speaker 5: more carbon than either the Amazon or the tropical forests
Speaker 5: of Southeast Asia, and they've just brought to light a
Speaker 5: few warnings about the health of the region, the fact
Speaker 5: that deforestation is continuing a pace, and there were various
Speaker 5: other threats. And I spoke to the Special Envoy for
Speaker 5: the panel who estimated that it is a decade to
Speaker 5: turn things around. As what's happened to the Amazon, the
Speaker 5: region may become a net emitter rather than absorber of carbon.
Speaker 2: Can you explain more about the importance of the Congo Basin.
Speaker 2: I mean, you walked us through a little bit there,
Speaker 2: but maybe you can contextualize it for the audience.
Speaker 5: The Congo Basin is a very large area. It's a
Speaker 5: little bigger than in India in total, stretches from Nigeria
Speaker 5: to the Rift Valley in East Africa. In total, it
Speaker 5: absorbs about six hundred million tons of carbon diks at
Speaker 5: a year. That's the carbon DIX that's sucked in by
Speaker 5: trees from the atmosphere, So that's a climate warming gas
Speaker 5: that's being taken out of the atmosphere and stored in trees,
Speaker 5: therefore not contributing to the warming up of the planet.
Speaker 5: That's quite big. That's equivalent to the annular missions of Germany.
Speaker 5: Which is a relatively large emitter. In addition to that,
Speaker 5: it has wetlands called peatlands, which store semi decomposed material
Speaker 5: and in those peatlands there are thirty billion tons of
Speaker 5: stored carbon, So it's pretty major. That's from a common perspective.
Speaker 5: In addition to that, it's a very large tropical forest
Speaker 5: area and that regulates rainfall and climates across a much
Speaker 5: broader region of Africa. So areas as far afield as
Speaker 5: the Sawhill in West Africa and the highlands of Ethiopia
Speaker 5: depend on what happens in the Congo basin where their
Speaker 5: own rainfalls to regulate their own rainfall seasons every year.
Speaker 2: Wow, and we've already seen swings and uncertainty and inconsistencies
Speaker 2: as far as some of the other countries go. So, Anthony,
Speaker 2: what exactly is driving deforestation in the Congo And how
Speaker 2: would you say it's different than what we're seeing elsewhere
Speaker 2: in the Amazon, for instance, in the.
Speaker 5: Congo basin is very different from the Amazon and Southeast
Speaker 5: Asia where agriculture is well to a certain extent, is
Speaker 5: very commercial. So these these massive plantations being run by
Speaker 5: big companies and we're see jungle being raised for soybean
Speaker 5: farms or palm oil plantations in the Congo Basin and
Speaker 5: really specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo, which accounts for
Speaker 5: about two thirds of the forest area of that forest region.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of subsistence agriculture where farming methods haven't
Speaker 5: changed in hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. So every
Speaker 5: year a family will go out and they will burn
Speaker 5: down and clear perhaps a hecta of jungle and then
Speaker 5: you know, plant crops in that area. Now that's problematic
Speaker 5: in that it's trimming back the jungle, meaning the trees
Speaker 5: can no longer absorb carbon. But it's also creating emissions
Speaker 5: in that it's burning all the spio mass, and that
Speaker 5: in itself is problematic. So it's quite a hard thing
Speaker 5: to get a handle on because there are millions of
Speaker 5: people involved in subsistence agriculture in the region and to
Speaker 5: change those practices is quite difficult, especially given that a
Speaker 5: lot of the governments in these countries are not that
Speaker 5: well run. They're fairly chaotic countries. Some of them are
Speaker 5: plagued by conflicts, especially in the DRC, and it's a big,
Speaker 5: big issue try and turn that situation around.
Speaker 2: Lara let's just bring you in here. When you know
Speaker 2: you've been following COP quite closely. How serious is this
Speaker 2: warning being taken?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's particularly salient for this top
Speaker 1: which is you know, being held at the edge of
Speaker 1: another tropical rainforest, and in the opening statement the terrelation
Speaker 1: of rainforest nations, which I think encompasses most if not all,
Speaker 1: of the countries in the condo basin. You know, they
Speaker 1: took the opportunity to kind of urge action on deforestation,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I think at this particular TOP, reports
Speaker 1: like this our front of mind. One of my sources
Speaker 1: at COP told me that he is particularly impressed with
Speaker 1: how many people are talking about bio diversity in nature,
Speaker 1: which isn't always the taste at climate crops. You know,
Speaker 1: often the focus is more on energy. But you know
Speaker 1: what makes TOP COP is that you've got most of
Speaker 1: the countries in the world there, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: computing objectives, and so while there is a sense of
Speaker 1: urgency and people are taking reports like this seriously, doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that Regenera do at the action that we
Speaker 1: really really want.
Speaker 2: Right, which is always the concern, Anthony, from your sources
Speaker 2: on the ground, there in Belam. How seriously are they
Speaker 2: taking this morning.
Speaker 5: I think that they're really looking for a big bank.
Speaker 5: You know, this is how important the congurvation is. I mean,
Speaker 5: this is, as Laura said, taking place at the HB Amazon,
Speaker 5: which is probably the world's best known tropical forest. I'm
Speaker 5: just saying, hey, this is also very important and things
Speaker 5: need to be done to preserve its role in regulating
Speaker 5: the international climates. So I think that's what they're aiming for.
Speaker 5: We'll have to see what the reaction is where they
Speaker 5: get much traction. You know, they've laid out very solutions,
Speaker 5: a lot of which are as ever, are pleased for
Speaker 5: more climate finance or money to be planned plot into
Speaker 5: sustainable development. So far we haven't seen a huge amount.
Speaker 5: I know that there has been a fund setup for
Speaker 5: the Amazon itself, and while they're in some plages, it's
Speaker 5: well shortened. The initial target.
Speaker 2: Stick with us both. When we come back, we'll talk
Speaker 2: more about what this report is telling us about the
Speaker 2: climate emergency in Africa and where any support is coming
Speaker 2: from to try.
Speaker 5: And actually tackle it.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. Welcome back. Today on the podcast,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the stark warning about the future of
Speaker 2: the congo basin delivered at this year's COP summit. Lara
Speaker 2: Williams and Antony's Cuisine are still with me. Now before
Speaker 2: we dig more into the solutions, Antony, I wonder, if
Speaker 2: you know, it's been a few days that CoP's been
Speaker 2: underway in Belem, does this one feel different? I mean,
Speaker 2: Lara was pointing out the location of this, and I wonder, though,
Speaker 2: with the previous cops that you've covered, does it seem
Speaker 2: like there's at least a bit more urgency coming out
Speaker 2: from the sources and the people that you've been speaking with.
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's a mixed picture. I mean, the
Speaker 5: resurgency given that the states of the global climate interior
Speaker 5: rating and you know, we're closer and closer to missing
Speaker 5: our targets to limit global warming, So there is that.
Speaker 5: But on the flip side, you know, we have the
Speaker 5: US which is not at COP and a slashed funding
Speaker 5: and is advocating more and more drilling for hydrocarbons. So
Speaker 5: I think it's really a very mixed picture, and it's
Speaker 5: hard to say it's going one way or the other.
Speaker 1: Lara, what would you say, Yeah, I'd say, you know
Speaker 1: this this top has also faced some logistical problems being
Speaker 1: held at you know, the edge of a tropical rainforest,
Speaker 1: and so it's much smaller than previous drops. That's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a bad thing. And you know, I think you
Speaker 1: guys have been to drops before and I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: felt the same kind of joy and hope. You know,
Speaker 1: there's something about the atmosphere, a crop just you know,
Speaker 1: everyone being there altogether. I have heard, you know, sources
Speaker 1: talking about about that sense is still there even though
Speaker 1: it is smaller. But yes, definitely, the US's absence is
Speaker 1: kind of looming large though that is a sense that
Speaker 1: that actually you know, could be better than them being there,
Speaker 1: you know, considering that they're they're now almost to the
Speaker 1: right of Saudi Arabia, who have consistently been a bit
Speaker 1: of a sticking point in COP negotiations, and so maybe
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a relief that they don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with the US. Is like bullying tactics in
Speaker 1: the neotiating rooms, and I think there is I know
Speaker 1: from the Brazil presidency they really want to stress and
Speaker 1: make this a cop for multilateralism, and so we've seen
Speaker 1: that already with you know, there could have been in
Speaker 1: a fight over the agenda of cop and that was
Speaker 1: resolved very quickly. But we are still early days. I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you now and there's only been one full
Speaker 1: day of substantive negotiation. So we'll have to see if
Speaker 1: that spirit of multilateralism continues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially in a world like we're in in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, Laura, when we look at the major emitters
Speaker 2: right of the world, who sort of would turn the dial?
Speaker 2: I mean, who should we be focused on, because we
Speaker 2: are obviously talking about the Congo basin today. Are some
Speaker 2: of the remedies that we're looking for on the African
Speaker 2: continent or is it some of these people who are
Speaker 2: maybe not present.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean it's definitely people who are not present. China.
Speaker 1: China does actually have I know, there's not many senior
Speaker 1: people from China there I believe, but they do have
Speaker 1: the second's largest delegation at crop after Brazil, so you
Speaker 1: know they are they are there, and there was a
Speaker 1: new story this week about their emissions being either stable
Speaker 1: or coming down. So so China, could you know, step
Speaker 1: up and be a solution I guess a part of
Speaker 1: the change. I guess In terms of Africa, I think
Speaker 1: it's about avoiding We want Africa like lot, there's lots
Speaker 1: of countries in Africa that are you know, still developing,
Speaker 1: and we want them to develop in the in a
Speaker 1: green way and kind of stip the coal fossil fuel
Speaker 1: stage that all of the developed countries dot to do through.
Speaker 1: And so key for that is getting climate finance from
Speaker 1: you know, the lights of Europe, the richer countries in
Speaker 1: order to help stale up the solutions in African countries.
Speaker 2: And just on that, Anthony, where where are some of
Speaker 2: the debates around climate finance and the solutions that you
Speaker 2: were just speaking to earlier.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the African continant is really pressing for
Speaker 5: a switch away from so called mitigation, which is reducing
Speaker 5: emissions by investing heavily and renewable energy and things like that.
Speaker 5: Because Africa doesn't really produce a lot of emissions. Its
Speaker 5: big problem is that it's catching the brunt of global warming,
Speaker 5: so you know, typhoons, drafts, floods, and so it wants
Speaker 5: more money for adaptation, which is you know, strengthening infrastructure,
Speaker 5: putting in place early warning systems for weather disasters, and
Speaker 5: a host of other things, even including sea walls, to
Speaker 5: create you know it's basically cope with rising sea level,
Speaker 5: and that's been a hard area to attract finance too,
Speaker 5: because it's very hard to get a financial return out
Speaker 5: of So that has really been the focus we really
Speaker 5: need to focus on. That climate change is here already,
Speaker 5: it's effecting the continent and money needs to be spent
Speaker 5: to protect the citizens of Africa from being affected as
Speaker 5: hard as they are.
Speaker 2: Is there hope, you would say in more capital being
Speaker 2: channeled towards some of those adaptation measures, then.
Speaker 5: Well, I think there've been a number of initiatives in
Speaker 5: recent years in terms of, you know, trying to set
Speaker 5: up specific funds and trying to steer more of the
Speaker 5: spend by the developed world towards adaptation rather than mitigation.
Speaker 5: But I think also we're in a climate where the
Speaker 5: US is cut back massively on climate finance, and the
Speaker 5: overseas development fund budgets of most of the rich nations
Speaker 5: such as the UK, in Germany, Scandinavian nations has also
Speaker 5: been slashed. So no, I think it's a very difficult time.
Speaker 5: There's no the messages being made loud and clear, but
Speaker 5: there's a limited pool of capital to be spent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, and Lara, maybe you can just finish
Speaker 2: us off. What's your expectation for the end of this
Speaker 2: COP especially as it pertains to the African continent. Do
Speaker 2: you think we'll actually see a joint communicate and potentially
Speaker 2: addressing some of these issues that we've spoken about.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, and I wish I had a
Speaker 1: crystal ball. I know that adaptation is a massive topic
Speaker 1: at this PROP and so what I would hope to see.
Speaker 1: What I would love to see is yes, a kind
Speaker 1: of joint communication on it. And I'm kind of global
Speaker 1: target for adaptation because I don't think we even have
Speaker 1: one of those yet, So that's what I would love
Speaker 1: to see. I can't say if that is what I
Speaker 1: will see, because props can be very surprising.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can say yes to that one, definitely. Lara
Speaker 2: Williams and also Anthony's Cuisine. Thank you both so much
Speaker 2: for joining us this week, and you can read Anthony's
Speaker 2: report ord along with our coverage from COP thirty across
Speaker 2: Bloomberg platforms. Now here's some of the other stories we've
Speaker 2: been following from across the region this week. South African
Speaker 2: Finance Minister Enoch Goodonguana delivered his budget update to lawmakers
Speaker 2: in Cape Town on Wednesday, presenting an improved macroeconomic outlook
Speaker 2: and plans to revise the country's inflation target. And Nigerian
Speaker 2: billionaire Aliko dan Gote told reporters in the Zimbabwean capital
Speaker 2: Harare that he plans to invest as much as one
Speaker 2: billion dollars in the southern African nation. You can follow
Speaker 2: these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter. We'll
Speaker 2: put a link to that in the show notes. This
Speaker 2: program was produced by Adrian Bradley and tiva Adebayo. Don't
Speaker 2: forget to follow and review this show wherever you usually
Speaker 2: get your podcasts. But for now, I'm Jennifer's Apisaja. Thanks
Speaker 2: as always for listening.