Climate: Kenya "is not asking for help", but "to be part of the solution"

June 23, 2023

The President of Kenya came to the Paris climate summit “not to ask for help” from rich countries, but for a reform of the global financial architecture to allow developing countries to “be part of the solution”, he told AFP on Thursday.

“The current financial architecture is unjust, punitive and inequitable”, says William Ruto.

“The countries of the South pay up to eight times more interest than the developed countries because they are considered risky”, recalls the Kenyan president, who wants to attract private investment more than development aid.

“We are tired of this narrative” which portrays Africans as “victims of climate change”, “seeking favours” and “lamenting”, explains Mr. Ruto: “We are not asking for help, we want to participate in the solution”.

To achieve this, he defends, it is necessary to reform the IMF and the World Bank, to rethink the management of the debt of developing countries and to create new fair taxes at the international level (maritime, air transport or on financial transactions).

In Kenya, “we pay about $10 billion every year to service our debt,” he says. “If we used it on the contrary for the development of the country, it would be an immediate redirection of immense resources and it would have an enormous impact” on the energy transition, health, electrification, etc.

For that, it is enough that “the money that we were supposed to pay to the World Bank, the IMF and all the other lenders, we converted it into a loan facility of 50 years with a grace period of 20 years”, he explains.

Faced with the climate crisis, “we don’t want the North to pay, we all want to pay”, says Mr Ruto as broken promises by rich countries have broken trust with poor countries, bogging down negotiations climate.

This trust, “we want to repair it by avoiding the little game of mutual reproaches”.

“While we continue to point fingers, the world is burning”, he underlines, referring to the delay of humanity in reducing its emissions to the height of the objectives of the Paris agreement, for lack of investment to fund development away from fossil fuels.

“We don’t want to say it’s the fault of the North, they are the emitters of greenhouse gases. It’s also true, but we don’t want to go into this field” because “today we are all in the m…”, he blurts out.

Other African leaders, however, castigate the North’s promptness to release billions for Ukraine at war. “It’s nothing compared to the existential threat posed to everyone by climate change”, retorts William Ruto, who demands to “put aside all other problems to face it together”.