Created in 1972 to be the environmental conscience of the UN and the world, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has coordinated a worldwide effort to confront the planet’s biggest environmental challenges. The concerned environmentalist draws a picture of what has been achieved in those five decades to advance the global environmental agenda and addresses the ongoing challenges…

UNEP, which is celebrating its 50th year of existence, is the only major UN organization headquartered in Africa. What is its mandate? 
If you see the evolution of how sustainable development came up as a major issue, it started in Germany where naturalists were seeing the depletion of forests and this escalated until it came to the US and the publication of the book Silent spring, which triggered the mainstreaming of the environment. This led to the celebration of the first Earth Day in 1970. The UN then decided to set up a body to look after the environment and in 1972 held a conference in Stockholm which led to the founding of UNEP. At the time most of the major UN offices were either in New York or Geneva; so, they thought to set up a major UN office in Africa. Now 50 years down the line UNEP has been struggling to put the planet on a sustainable pathway. 

The history of UNEP is also linked to the founding of our own environment ministry here in Mauritius? 
The very first big moment of UNEP was a meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 that was the biggest summit on the environment. Late Sir Anerood Jugnauth participated in that meeting as head of government. He was inspired by that meeting and when he came back, he created a ministry dedicated to the environment. 

What is the UNEP’s track record like? 
We have to go back to the Rio meeting. It came up with the Agenda 21, which was a massive framework and a huge document that countries had to customize to put themselves on a more sustainable path. Most countries did not do that, so it failed. Even Mauritius did not to do it. Then 10 years later, it met again in Durban, in South Africa, to see the stocktaking since Rio and found that nothing much had happened. These were the decades when more than half of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was pumped in. The irony was that as the UN started talking about climate change, it was the time when countries started emitting more and more. And then, in 2012, they had another meeting and another report found that there was still a long way to go. They agreed on what came to be known as ‘Agenda 2030’ which was launched with targets for 2030. So, this where we are after 50 years, where the UN is still struggling when it comes to climate change. 

What role did Covid-19 play in all this? 
Some argued that the pandemic was an opportunity to build back better and saw sustainable development goals as a roadmap to do that. This is what some wise states such as New Zealand, China to some extent and South Korea have started to do.

Given that UNEP is based in Africa, what are the challenges when it comes to African countries? 
As a general rule what is happening within Africa is that it is still seen as the continent that provides raw materials. This is the consequence of the richness of the soil, it has 12% of global oil reserves, 40% of global gold reserves and 85% of expensive metals like chromium and platinum and phosphate reserves. It’s a plus but it has also led to its downfall because these countries in general have become extraction economies dependent on the export of non-renewable commodities. Africa has to move out of this. Corruption is a big problem that has led to major UN initiatives not working such as the African Renewable Energy Initiative that was launched in COP21 which was intended to move Africa out of energy poverty. Still today 640 million Africans do not have electricity in their homes and 600,000 children die every year because of burning fuelwood within their homes. 

Many African states are looking to light manufacturing as China looks to set up industries there, and that requires investments in energy such as coal, which is cheaper. How does this fit with the need to combat climate change? 
I believe that Africa is not choosing the right path. 

Explain why you say that. 
There was a resolution passed in the AU after the Paris Climate Agreement saying that African states should develop renewable energy. It is true that Africa needs energy, has the youngest average age of the population on the planet, cheap labour and land. What is lacking is energy. Let me give an example; today people are leaving rural areas and migrating to urban areas and soon 50 percent of Africans will be living in cities. This will exacerbate problems and put pressure on water, energy and housing, which Africa just cannot cope with. That is when social problems come in. You need to bring value and energy to rural areas with decentralized renewable energy that can lead to agriculture taking off. I have been a member of the Pan-African Parliament and I can say that most African leaders don’t think about that. Extractive industries allow for a lot of corruption. Look at what the Chinese are doing and illegal logging in Central Africa. 

There is a difference, the Chinese are building infrastructure in these countries on a massive scale as well. China wants to delocalize to Africa. But there are problems as well. I went to an oil refinery in Sudan, where the entire thing was run by Chinese. That type of development is being encouraged by African leaders. And a lot of coal power plants are also being set up. 

What about climate change specifically? 
Right now, Africa is just 3 percent of emissions that’s mostly from cattle and land use, not really from thermal energy. This continent has in its ground around 129 billion barrels of crude oil, around 32 billion tonnes of coal, 15 trillion cubic meters of gas which has been discovered so far and now there are new discoveries offshore as well. If you don’t push the continent to transit to renewable energy at this time, and they start developing these more, then, forget about limiting climate change. This is where the developed world is making a huge mistake. 

So, the mistake is that everybody is focused on the big polluters of today, while ignoring the potentially big polluters of tomorrow? 
We are making the same mistake that the Kyoto Protocol did in 1997 when the world said this would only be for developed countries and left out countries like China and India. So again, we are repeating the same mistake. That $100 billion that developed countries have pledged to help countries transition to renewables, a big chunk of it has to go to Africa for the sake of everybody. Right now, because there is no attention on Africa, a lot of these countries are getting into fossil fuels. 

There is another country also that says it’s very vulnerable to climate change but looking to develop an extractive industry of its own too. Mauritius just passed an offshore petroleum bill and is working on a seabed mining bill. Is Mauritius making the same mistake as Africa? 
Mauritian governments have no real vision, we have big documents but there is too much incoherence and no continuity, one government starts something and then another comes in and reverses everything. There is no long-term thinking. We have had an environment ministry since 1992 but since then all our indicators have been going in the red, in terms of coastal erosion, saving our forests and so on. You go to COP26 and declare a climate emergency; according to all reports we are one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, temperatures in Mauritius have risen by 1.3 degrees Celsius, which is above the global norm, our sea levels are rising by 6.8 mm per year which is above the global norm of 3.4 mm per year. 

We risk losing our beaches by 2050 and there are 6,000 people at risk from climate change, but nothing is being done. Now we have said we will move out of coal by 2030, but no roadmap to show how we will do that. These are just sensational statements. This is why you can declare a climate emergency and then pass an offshore petroleum bill, either its ignorance about climate change or its total incoherence in terms of policy. At some point we will have to choose between the environment and the people or go looking for fossil fuels and deep-sea mining. So yes, we are moving towards the African countries in terms of an extractive philosophy. 

What do you expect to see in COP27 at Sharm El-Shaikh? More ambitious targets and statements from Mauritius? 
The major two things not achieved at COP26 in Glasgow were about reducing emissions and we are still heading towards climate warming with what countries pledged at Glasgow. That’s because of the G20 countries and the pressure will have to be on them. Now for Mauritius in 2015 we pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Since then, it’s increased by 30 percent. From 1999 to date our emissions per capita have doubled. In COP26 we tried to act clever with a higher target but in the few years until 2030 will you be able to do that with the number of cars increasing, energy from coal and energy demand increasing, do you think you will be able to do that? We have to call out their bluff.