Bill Gates: Africans need genetically modified seeds and chickens to fight climate change

23.11.23 (9)

At the Africa Climate Summit, Bill Gates marketed his genetically modified seeds and chickens to tackle the “climate crisis.” Both genetically modified food sources are not for the benefit of Africans, so who do they benefit?

The inaugural Africa Climate Summit was held in Nairobi, Kenya on 4 to 6 September 2023. It was marketed with the slogan ‘Driving Green Growth & Climate Finance Solutions for Africa and The World’.

Among the Summit’s funding partners are the usual suspects: The Rockefeller Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Clinton Health Action Initiative, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (“CIFF”) and the ClimateWorks Foundation.

Sir Chris Hohn’s CIFF along with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund are part of a small group of global foundations that since 2018 has committed to investing billions by 2025 to “tackle the climate crisis.” The group calls itself ClimateWorks. Also among ClimateWorks’ funding partners is Gates Ventures.

In an update in 2020, Hohn said the original group, ClimateWorks, was well on track to invest at least $6 billion by 2025, “thanks to significant increases from several funders, as well as additional philanthropic donors committing new resources, and likely more as all philanthropists are actively invited to allocate a portion of their portfolio” to invest in tackling the fabricated climate crisis.

Also listed as funding partners for the Africa Climate Summit are USAID; UKAID; a handful of UN agencies including the UN’s Green Climate Fund and International Organisation for Migration; the governments of Germany, Denmark and France; and, the European Union.

There is a token of African funders such as the African Development Bank and EcoBank however, it can be easily construed that it was not an African Summit but rather an Anglo-American-European Summit to which some Africans were invited. Put another way, the Summit represented the West and a small group of private foundations “driving green growth and climate finance solutions” in Africa.

As if to prove this point, The Guardian reported that at the Summit the Nairobi Declaration was adopted as a blueprint “to guide” Africa in future negotiations with the West in global forums such as the G20 meeting; the UN general assembly; the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund; and COP28.

The UN hailed the Summit as a great success and as if it was African leaders who were pushing the agenda.

African leaders, calling for urgent action by developed countries to reduce carbon emissions, have proposed new financing mechanisms to restructure Africa’s crippling debt and unlock climate funding.

In a call to action, African leaders attending the inaugural Africa Climate Summit held in Nairobi, Kenya, stressed the importance of decarbonising the global economy for equality and shared prosperity. They called for investment to promote the sustainable use of Africa’s natural assets for the continent’s transition to low-carbon development and contribution to global decarbonisation.Nairobi Declaration makes strong push for accelerated climate action and financing mechanisms, UNECA, 7 September 2023

However, in reality, the Summit did not go as smoothly as the UN portrayed.

Five hundred African civil society groups under the umbrella of the Africa People’s Climate Assembly, organised what they called the Real Africa Climate Summit. The organisations were concerned about what they called “false solutions” that were on the summit’s agenda, such as carbon markets, carbon credits and the use of technology as a viable alternative to phasing out harmful fossil fuels. These concepts, they said, are led by global north interests “and are being marketed as African priorities when in reality they will embolden wealthy nations and large corporations to continue polluting Africa.”

Maimoni Ubrei-Joe, a climate justice and energy programme coordinator at Friends of the Earth Africa, was blunt on the extractive exploitation model used by key polluters: “What should be Africa’s focus now is to stop the contributors to climate change at source and not look for shortcuts to keep extracting using the smokescreen of the carbon market, geoengineering and other false solutions. This Nairobi Declaration is short of these ideas and it could just be another beautiful document heading for the shelves.”

A few days before the summit, these organisations had written to President Ruto asking him to take charge of the talks, which they said were at risk of being hijacked by interested parties from the West. The US-based consultancy firm McKinsey & Company was identified as having helped shape the summit’s concept note, which the organisations said did not champion Africa’s interests but those of the US and “the Western corporations they represent”. They added: “Rather than advancing Africa’s interests and position on critical climate issues, the summit has been seized by Western governments, consultancy companies and philanthropic organisations hellbent on pushing a pro-west agenda and interests at the expense of Africa.”Climate crisis: Africa is talking but is the West listening? The Guardian, 12 September 2023

So how do the West and private global foundations plan to gain Africa’s cooperation? With promises of money.

Almost every African country present at the summit walked away with a financing deal with Western institutions. A final communique commended the “progressive capital commitments made during the week” totalling $26bn from public, private, and multilateral development banks, philanthropic foundations and dedicated partners in the development finance community.Climate crisis: Africa is talking but is the West listening?The Guardian, 12 September 2023

Among the key speakers was John Kerry who irked Uganda’s leader, Yoweri Museveni, who “could not sit and be lectured by [Kerry],” The Guardian said. Well said Mr. Museveni.

To not miss out on an opportunity to promote his “climate crisis” investments, Bill Gates sent what appears to be a pre-recorded video speech to be played during the Summit:

“I started work on climate change over two decades ago,” Gates said.

“When I visited Africa, I saw two things. First was how climate is already affecting agricultural output … I also saw the energy shortage,” he said. After praising the research and innovation of Africans in green energy, Gates said “Breakthrough Energy is the organisation I created to help with climate mitigation.”

Breakthrough Energy’s mission is to accelerate the “unprecedented technological transformations” needed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero” by 2050. It does this by supporting research and development, investing in companies that “turn green ideas into clean products,” and advocating for policies that speed innovation from lab to market.

Two directors from the Breakthrough Institute disagree with Gates. Breakthrough Institute was founded in 2007 by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger. Although it is a different organisation from Breakthrough Energy, two of its funders are Breakthrough Energy and ClimateWorks Foundation – one of which is Gates’ organisation and the other is funded in part by Gates.

“No matter what advocates and policymakers say, these cheap, renewables-only scenarios remain theoretical and unproven even for wealthy countries,” the Breakthrough Institute directors said. “It is even more difficult for poor countries.”

“Too often, climate advocates claim a consensus on the feasibility and affordability of 100 per cent renewable power globally when such a consensus simply does not exist – certainly not among energy systems experts, when they consider real-world constraints,” the two directors said. “Claims that it will be cheaper for African countries to use only renewable energy to grow their economies rather than a mix of fuels are unrealistic.”

However, Gates will continue to push his green ideology because, as global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company noted, “Green energy in Africa presents significant investment opportunities.”

Gates then went on to describe to the Africa Climate Summit a conversation he had with a farmer in Kenya named Mary. He talked to her about “how the new seeds and new approaches were helping her. She had drought tolerant seeds that made a very big difference. She also had chickens that were bred so they could be more heat tolerant.”