The Africa Progress Panel has called on African countries that emit the most carbon emissions to raise their level of ambition, adding that governments in these countries should place stringent prices on emissions of greenhouse gases by taxing it, instead of encouraging it by spending billions on subsidies for fossil-fuel exploration.

In this year’s Africa Progress Report, ‘Power, People, Planet: Seizing Africa’s Energy and Climate Opportunities’, the panel has noted that the continent is well positioned to play a significant role in the global low-carbon transition and will be able to do so quickly, if significant investments are made now.

However, it has highlighted that much of this financing will need to come from “rich nations”, adding that international climate financing is chronically underfunded and uncoordinated and needs to improve.

“At the Financing Development Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, next month, Group of 7 (G7) countries can set a clear timetable for the previously agreed $100-billion in yearly climate finance each year,” the panel said.

“At the G7 summit, leaders reaffirmed their strong commitment to mobilising this financing. This should be used to generate clean power,” it added.

It has called on Germany, as the leader in clean energy globally, and current chairperson of the G7, to spearhead this process and has welcomed the G7 commitment to assist in the acceleration of access to renewable energy in Africa.

“I applaud [German] Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leadership in steering the G7 to a firm agreement to decarbonise the global economy over the course of this century.

“G7 has also heard the call from Africa and Africans to massively scale up investment in renewable energy across our continent. “The G7 pledge to mobilise resources to accelerate the creation of a low carbon energy system in the region could be a game changer; helping Africa grow and leapfrog to a sustainable low carbon future. “This is good for Africa and the global fight against climate change,” Africa Progress Panel chairperson Kofi Annan said.