2015 UN Climate Change Summit in Paris: Africa must go as a team

A legendary broom stick of Ghanaian folklore says: “When I stand alone I cannot sweep and even a baby can break me up into pieces. But when we are bound together we sweep beautifully and a giant cannot break us up into pieces!”

On Saturday, August 22, 2015, the Daily Graphic carried a well-researched feature on page six of its Global outlook column. The academic piece was written by no less a person than Mr Jon Benjamin, the British High Commissioner to Ghana. The headline of the article was: “100 Days to Paris – Securing a Global Deal and Transitioning to a Low Carbon Future.”

It was the sub-heading “Securing a Global Deal and Transitioning to a Low Carbon Future” that fascinated me. In Political Ecology of Global Environmental Politics, it is known that when countries engage in debates during negotiations at global forums of the UN World Environmental Programme (WEP), some advanced nations tend to adopt some funny tricks or strategies to their advantage.