RIYADH: Amid warnings from the scientific community regarding the growing risks posed by climate change, African leaders who attended the UN Climate Change Conference, demanded sufficient funding and technical support to ensure a sustainable future. Speaking at the high-level segment for heads of states and government at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa said the entire African continent is now experiencing the worsening effects of climate change. Ramaphosa noted that Africa should build adaptive capacity to fight climate change, and also urged multilateral cooperation to achieve sustainability goals. “Multilateral support is out of reach for a majority of the world’s population due to lending policies and conditionality. We need a clear roadmap to deliver on the Glasgow decision to double adaptation financing by 2025,” said Ramaphosa. This year’s COP made a promising start on Sunday as countries agreed to include the issue of ‘loss and damage’ in its formal main agenda for the first time ever. ‘Loss and damage’ would see cash-rich polluters paying reparations to poorer states who make negligible contributions to emissions but still face unavoidable damage from climate change due to worsening floods, droughts and sea level rise. Speaking at the event, Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said: “Loss and damage should be not viewed through controversial lenses; it should be considered a decarbonization accelerator. “We must establish a loss and damage response fund here. The adoption of the agenda item is just one step. We look forward to the establishment of funds by 2024.” He also added that humanity needs collective action to reduce fossil fuel emissions, and criticized fossil fuel companies for burning planet earth. Évariste Ndayishimiye, president of Burundi, also stressed the vitality of funding African nations to accelerate the energy transition. “Burundi appeals to the United Nations and international financial institutions to create kinds of innovative financial mechanisms. These mechanisms should contain green bonds and large-scale financial guarantees,” he said. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, president of Malawi, went a step further and said that nature is losing its patience with human beings, and warned that dire consequences are awaiting humanity. “We are running out of time. Nature is losing its patience with us. As nature lashes out, our citizens are also losing their patience. We must act today, not tomorrow. We need to act with courage, urgency and solidarity to solve climate issues,” said Chakwera. Ghana’s President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo called for a “radical restructuring of global financial architecture”, adding: “No one will win if Africa loses.” As African nations want developed countries to agree at COP27 to launch a funding facility, dedicated to loss and damage, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said that it will increase its budget for international climate finance. “In the upcoming years, from the period, 2023-2026, the ministry for climate action will allocate an additional €220 million to international climate finance,” said Van der Bellen. Speaking on the first day of COP27, Minouche Shafik, director of the London School of Economics, said Africa has all the potential to become a renewable energy powerhouse if rich nations help the continent in the global battle against climate change. “Many African countries are in the sunshine, wind, rivers and forests. With the support and lower cost of capital, these nations could leapfrog the energy systems of the past,” she said.