WATCH | ‘Global power imbalance is causing humanitarian crisis,’ Botswana President Masisi tells summit

While developed nations have benefitted and contributed the most to the climate change challenges faced by the world, the process to mitigate this is both unjust and unfair to poor nations that are also affected the most.

This is the view of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who was speaking to TimesLIVE Premium on the sidelines of Global Citizen Now summit in New York.

Masisi said pressure was unfairly being brought to bear on poor nations by financial institutions offering incentives for small countries to steer clear of fossil fuels while the bigger emitters were not similarly pressured.

Our states remain small, vulnerable and uninfluential in the larger scheme of things

—  Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi 

“We in the developing world suffer the most, and we pay for that through every means possible, including being made to pay by the financial institutions whose means to access credit have included in there our ability to not emit and that would stall and put on the back foot our capacity to industrialise.

“So there’s a whole framework laden with unfairness in an attempt to address the problem, but the problem persists. It’s not that we are not committed to making sure we reduce emissions.

“The question has to be asked and an answer demanded: if you are to inflect and make the most significant affect in dealing with the problem, where should you act first and most? Is it among us [countries of the global south] or them. Without taking away the need for everybody to take action. I would hazard to suggest we continue to pay a bigger price in an attempt to resolve problems that are the responsibility of those developed [nations],” said Masisi.

Several speakers at the Global Citizen Now summit urged the voting public across the globe to hold those in power accountable for emissions in their countries. They said all nations are affected by extreme weather patterns that have unleashed either extraordinarily high temperatures, as witnessed by several European countries and the US, floods (as seen in Dubai, Kenya and Somalia recently) or sustained drought (as seen in Southern Africa), with calamitous consequences for food security.

Small island states such as the Bahamas, for example, were experiencing frequent hurricanes, causing damage to infrastructure and hugely disrupting economic activity, where they used to see only one per year, said Prime Minister Philip Davis.

The richer nations were, for now, still able to use their economic muscles to limit the affect of extreme weather changes.

Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, told the summit last week: “Voters need to hold leaders accountable because ultimately they’re the ones who can demand accountability.”

But what if the voting public doesn’t hold the big emitters accountable sooner, what then for Africa and countries of the global south?

“Our states remain small, vulnerable and uninfluential in the larger scheme of things,” said Masisi.

“But the non-state actors, such as you in the media, in the framing of this question and challenge, not only in the south but particularly in the north, is what is going to make the difference. More than just the state entities, you and your colleagues in the media have a massive democratising role to play.”

He said Botswana developed a new climate policy in 2021 in terms of which the country was taking advantage of the abundant sun and wind to provide cleaner energy, specially in rural areas where it is costly to roll out grid infrastructure. But the world needed to find a more humane and equitable way of saving the planet sooner, he noted.

Masisi said the global power imbalance was “causing a humanitarian crisis. It’s a lack of justice. It brings about sustained inequity globally because we’ve been pushed down and we keep getting pushed down”.

Global Citizen founder and CEO Hugh Evans emphasised the centrality of collective action that must be taken urgently to put pressure on big emitters not only to reduce their emissions but also to help fight extreme poverty in poor countries.