An upcoming African climate change summit to be hosted by Kenyan President William Ruto has not been “hijacked by foreign interests”, his office has told the BBC.
The African Climate Summit, which will take place in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, from 4-6 September features speakers from Kenya’s government, the African Union and United Nations.
The French government, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the African Development Bank are among the summit’s partners.
Signed by more than 300 “gravely concerned” African organisations, a recent open letter to Mr Ruto says the summit has been “seized” by Western governments and organisations “hellbent on pushing a pro-West agenda and interests at the expense of Africa”.
Signatories include ActionAid Ghana, the African Union’s Youth Wing and South Sudan’s University of Juba.
In response, Mr Ruto’s special adviser for climate change, Ali Mohamed, told the BBC the summit was an “African endorsed event hosted by an African bank that is going to discuss the challenge to the global community”.
“The population of ordinary African people will truly be represented through the leadership and the experts who are attending the summit,” he said, adding that 13,000 people had registered for the event.
The open letter specifically takes aim at the summit’s agenda, saying it prioritises Western interests, such as carbon markets.
In the past, carbon market schemes have enabled rich countries to compensate for their emissions by financing climate projects in developing countries.
These schemes have been heavily criticised – opponents say they fail to reduce global emissions and have been linked to environmental and human rights violations in poorer countries. A new set of rules on carbon markets was agreed at COP26, but they remain to be finalised.
The letter also singles out the role of leading US consultancy McKinsey. The signatories allege the firm has “unduly influenced” the summit.
McKinsey was listed as a partner on the African Climate Summit website, but was removed from the index after the letter was published.
McKinsey did not comment on the allegations contained in the letter when approached by BBC News, but pointed to remarks made on Wednesday by Kenya’s environment minister, Soipan Tuya.
She said that because of the global nature of the summit “we have different partners”.
“We have civil society organisations, we have consultancy firms that have come and listened to what we are saying and they have input and they have questions, but I can confirm that this is the African position that we are projecting,” she added.
