Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed delivers this year’s Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture | United Nations in South Africa
How does one remain hopeful in a time of deep and dark crisis? Amina Mohammed has been an advocate of “stubborn optimism” long before it became fashionable. The United Nations deputy secretary general, a former environment minister in the Nigerian government, was in Cape Town last Friday to deliver the annual Archbishop Desmond Tutu lecture.
She told a packed city hall that even though “our world is in crisis with Africa left behind, yet again” that “inspired and humbled by his legacy I am here as a servant of the global townhall, to our global village, the United Nations, calling for global transformation, shepherded by Archbishop Tutu’s steadfast commitment to hope and healing.”
Given what Mohammed calls the “multitude of cascading and compounding crises” — from the climate crisis to increasing levels of poverty and inequality caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, to geopolitical insecurity arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the knock-on effect on global energy prices and, consequently, the cost of food — it is often hard to remain hopeful.
The rational response to the facts is to be pessimistic about the future. But, to give up hope would be to accept a Hobbesian hell in which human life on Earth is increasing “nasty, brutish and short”, thereby reversing the human development gains of the past 70 years.
The case for “stubborn optimism” is made in a book co-authored by Christiana Figueres, The Future We Choose, the former head of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change and who is credited with the success of the landmark Paris agreement reached at the annual climate change negotiations (COP) in the French capital in 2015.
On the morning after her Tutu lecture, Mohammed says that seven years after Paris the promise of a 1.5ºC world — the pivotal target agreed upon in Paris — was “on a lifeline” last year. COP26, in Glasgow in late 2021, was about “saving Paris”. COP27 will be hosted by Egypt next month.
I ask Mohammed what the idea of an “African COP” means to her. It has to be the “implementation COP”, she says, building on the progress made in Glasgow. This response is in keeping with her non-flashy reputation for granularity and practical solutions ahead of slogans. “If it doesn’t happen in Africa then where is it going to happen?” Quick as a flash, and before I can ask the obvious follow-up, she puts it to herself: “What does that mean? It is a focus on two of the main five pillars that we see — adaptation [to the negative effects of climate change] and the money for adaptation; can we double what we are getting and can we disburse it, can we put it into the pipelines and programmes and transitions that we say are needed for the 1.5 degrees world?
“What does that look like on the ground — is it part of the energy transition that we say must be ‘just’ and what does that look like? Or is it part of the food systems transformation? Is it about connecting everyone so that you can get on with these transitions?”
All good questions. Mohammed accepts that the energy crisis, which is a “big shock to Europe”, is having a negative effect on food security in Africa and is complicating things greatly. Does this mean that COP27 will have to discuss issues of peace and security for the first time if the conflict in Ukraine is not to knock the world off of its urgent quest for a radically more sustainable relationship between people and planet, and between the economy and natural capital?
Mohammed is an experienced diplomat, adept at providing neat answers to difficult questions, which balance the need for a punchy enough soundbite with the need for credibility through substance.
“There is always the context in which we have the COP, right!”, she replies, with the “right” crisply accentuated with an exclamation mark. “COP27 in Egypt will be about the geopolitical crisis that we have — Ukraine, Russia and the West. It will also be about that other shadow crisis between the US and its relations with China.
“It does complicate things. This is about supply chains, about finance, about whether there is a conducive environment to put the people who are needed around the table in the room. You saw how difficult it was to get the US, China and Europe around the table in Paris, which got us a remarkable outcome.”
“Could we do that today?” Mohammed asks rhetorically. “Unlikely,” she says with a wry laugh. “There are many exigencies that would not put the same people around the table.” Hence, she admits, Egypt is as much about getting the right people in the room as it is about implementation.
This, after all, is what the UN does; this is its soft power. Given understandable cynicism about the pace of change and the ability of the UN to be more than a talk shop, I ask Mohammed what power the UN has to put pressure on powerful actors.
The UN “is not a person or a country”, Mohammed explains. “It is a very complex family of 193. It is the convening and the forging of consensus, and spotlighting of what must be done, and talking through it. And bringing strange bedfellows together. So if we can’t get the G20 around the table in a normal G20, then we must do so in other spaces — such as the roundtables that the UN secretary general convenes. A lot of it is shuttle diplomacy, behind the scenes. That is the power of the UN.”
A concern about who it can get into the room is what keeps Mohammed awake at night, because “if you don’t succeed then the trust that has already started to erode will leave us not in a good place” for the next COP in 2023, which is supposed to be a mid-term “stock-take” of progress on Paris.
Mohammed notes that Indonesia has this year “done a remarkable job keeping the G20 alive. Functioning? Question mark. But ‘alive’ is a huge dividend from a really complex space. So if we can see G20 countries in the room speaking to the solutions, to where they can unblock resources, then we can start to rebuild the trust.”
As a G20 country South Africa has an important role to play, not least because it is Africa’s biggest economy. Since Cyril Ramaphosa ousted Jacob Zuma from power in 2018, the country has once again been viewed by international partners as an adult in the room. My words, not Mohammed’s. She is a diplomat. But she has high hopes, based on what she calls the “remarkable leadership in Glasgow; they really kick-started our just energy transitions to put an end to coal. That has been a difficult journey, but has added another three, four countries.”
She refers to “the JETP”, a new piece of jargon to add to a sector that is already jam-packed with acronyms. The world is watching South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Programme very closely. It could be a blueprint for many other places, including Indonesia, which is putting in place its own “country platform” to attract international climate finance and private investment to fund its own transition away from coal.
Two countries out of almost two hundred. This kind of transition needs to happen everywhere, and fast, if the world is to stand any chance of following a different economic development pathway in time to avoid the climate catastrophe that climate science is foretelling.
In Egypt, she wants South Africa to “speak to truth to power” in relation to climate finance — the resources that must necessarily come from developed countries to developing countries and emerging economies. In Glasgow a “political declaration” was signed and presented with great fanfare as the biggest pledge of climate finance ever — $8.5-billion — a positive outcome that might justify greater optimism.
The details of that deal are still being negotiated, led by former Absa chief executive Daniel Mminele based out of the presidency. Given what Mohammed calls the “unfulfilled commitments” made in Paris, she expresses candid concern about on-going resourcing. What will be the guarantees that the pledges made to South Africa, which is “putting its political neck on the line in its own country and the real lives of people in communities in a transition”, will be honoured as the transition unfolds? Developed countries are “going to have to do a lot more than they have ever done before if they want the JETPs to work”.
After all, the original climate finance commitment made as the Copenhagen COP collapsed in 2009, of $100-billion a year by 2020, has still not been reached. Mohammed regards that commitment as the “handshake, it’s not the resources we need for real climate action”, given the need to move from billions to trillions, and “if we can’t even do the handshake what hope do we have of getting the rest on the table? So now we must do the two together: push for a firm handshake and then leverage existing mechanisms in the financial community.”
In this regard, the UN wants the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to step up. There are calls for radical reform of the Bretton Woods institutions from numerous credible sources; led by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Motley, many leaders called for an overhaul of the IFIs. The role of IFIs is coming under considerable scrutiny in part because of the controversy about World Bank President David Malpass’s commitment to the climate agenda.
“The MDBs are not disbursing funds, for reasons of their own, and it’s important that they now step up,” Mohammed says. “The shareholders somehow hang back when they need to lean forward to help the MDBs.”
Returning to the theme of hope and healing from the previous evening, and the delightful celebration of the life and legacy of “the Arch”, Mohammed uses the word “dread” when she is reminded that the climate science clearly says that the world needs to follow a very different economic trajectory by 2030, just seven years away.
“I have to remain hopeful about the possibilities. Humanity’s quite incredible. Look at the way we responded to Covid-19, to turn things around, and deploy resources, and to actually produce the vaccines faster than ever before. We did it. I have not given up because we can turn things around on a sixpence when there is a will. Right?”
There’s that use of “right” again, expressing a firmness of intention and, yes, a stubborn optimism.
And, if she could channel Tutu, and put his voice into the decision-making rooms around the world, what truth would she have him speak to power? “Do it now or pay for it in a very personal way tomorrow. It’s no longer about future generations, it’s about now. Leaders are coming to the water but just not drinking the Kool-Aid. If the Arch was in the room the case he would make very strongly would be about ubuntu, right? It is about what is happening to me will happen to you. It’s just a matter of time.”
Richard Calland is an associate professor in public law at the University of Cape Town. His new book, The Presidents: From Mandela to Ramaphosa, Leadership in the Age of Crisis, is co-authored with Mabel Sithole and will be published soon by PenguinRandom-House.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.