Browsing: Paris Agreement

• The economic benefits of green innovation primarily manifest through increased investment in the initial years.
• Research indicates that doubling green patent filings can elevate the gross domestic product by 1.7 percent after five years.
• The IMF advises against the use of government policies that restrict international trade to support domestic industries, cautioning against the act of protectionism.

The IMF states that the momentum of low-carbon innovation has now slowed, as promising technologies are not spreading rapidly enough to lower-income countries including in Africa where they can be particularly helpful.

This is in spite of the progress made in the recent past when green innovation reached its peak at 10 per cent of total patent filings in 2010.

“Since then, it has experienced a mild decline, reflecting various factors, including hydraulic fracking lowering the price of oil and technological maturity in some initial technologies such as renewables, which slows the pace …

• The reward for fixing the carbon credit trade could be enormous, especially for Africa’s energy transition.
• The $2 billion global trade in voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) has suffered from greenwashing allegations, with prices plummeting from the 2022 peaks.
• For some African climate-linked businesses, the successful functioning of the carbon credits market is not a nice one but is core to their operating strategy.

Highly indebted nations need all the financing available to support their energy transition and climate adaptation needs. With the developed world lagging on its climate funding pledges, market-based solutions provide a supplementary funding source.

Carbon credits, a tradeable instrument obtained when a tonne of carbon is avoided or withdrawn from the atmosphere, have always offered significant optimism. With swaths of carbon-capturing biodiversity in the global south, Africa has the supply, while the industrialised nations looking to offset their emissions have the demand. Buyers then channel the finances …

• An IMF team was in Nairobi from May 9 – 22, 2023, for the fifth review of Kenya’s economic program.
• After engagements, Kenya secured a $544.3 million loan from the International Monetary Fund. 
• The parties also agreed to extend the duration of the EFF/ECF arrangements by 10 months to April 2025.

Kenya has secured about $544.3 million loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) representing 75 percent of the country’s quota. The deal follows staff-level agreement between IMF staff and the Kenyan authorities on economic policies and reforms. It marks conclusion of the fifth reviews of Kenya’s Extended Credit Facility and Extended Fund Facility arrangements.

In the deal, Kenya secured an extension of the program and augmentation of access under those arrangements. The credit is also anchored on a set of reforms under a 20-month Resilience and Sustainability Facility.

Kenya’s economy, the largest in East Africa, has been strained by …

Conservation, biodiversity protection, resource efficiency, consumption patterns, climate mitigation and adaptation, employment development, as well as poverty alleviation, are all emphasized in three resolutions.

According to a resolution on minerals and metals, solutions should be developed to increase the environmental sustainability of these products over their whole existence.

Protect, conserve, restore, and sustainably use lakes while incorporating them into national and regional development plans are the goals of the resolution on sustainable lake management.…