EMMANUEL SECK, DIRECTOR OF ENDA ENERGIE “As elements of responses to climate change, endogenous knowledge deserves to be put forward more”

EMMANUEL SECK, DIRECTOR OF ENDA ENERGIE “As elements of responses to climate change, endogenous knowledge deserves to be put forward more”

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Mr. Seck, Enda Energy and its partners have just completed the third Climate and Energy Week, which was held from July 1 to 6. What can we learn from the work?

It should be remembered that we set up this Climate and Energy Week as a framework for prospecting and exploring topics related to climate change such as losses and damages, the inter-relationship and the climate-health nexus, aspects related to social protection, that is to say the impact of disasters or disaster risks on populations, the dimension related to decentralization. Our objective is to discuss these topics, but also to make this week a platform that can allow us to discuss solutions that we are implementing at the local level. When we talk about solutions at the local level, it is because, already, at the national level, Senegal has had to develop commitments through the nationally determined contribution, whether on mitigation issues or on adaptation issues. And now, we asked ourselves why local solutions or local actions in agroforestry, agroecology, the fight against land salinization and desertification, the preservation of mangroves, and the promotion of improved stoves for cleaner production should not be solutions considered in the implementation of the nationally determined contribution. Better still, based on what has been done at the local level, how could we have a mechanism that could aggregate the solutions proposed by non-state actors, especially since the global assessment was presented and it shows somewhere that there was a low commitment from the parties to increase this commitment. I think it is entirely appropriate to set up a mechanism that could allow for the efforts and actions carried out by non-state actors to be counted in order to avoid this bias in terms of information and reporting.

When you talk about local solutions, are you referring to proven experiences that have proven their effectiveness on the ground?

Yes, absolutely! These are actions carried out at the local level, whether by the populations, for the populations or with the populations. That is to say, there are activities that the State, technical development partners or other stakeholders finance so that the populations can face the challenges related to their development, whether on the socio-economic level or on the challenges related to climate change. We talked about coastal erosion, the rise, for example, in temperature with its impact on the level of rainfall on agricultural activities, activities related to livestock breeding and even inland fishing and fishing in general, it being understood that the marine ecosystem is included in this disruption linked to climate change issues. Issues relating to the fight against desertification, the conservation of biodiversity. So the actions are often carried out with the populations since they often also have solutions, endogenous knowledge that deserve to be put forward as elements of responses. I will just give you a few examples. The sacred woods, relics of forests that remain in Casamance, are well protected. These cases are examples to consider. For example, if you go to areas where the mangrove is very important, you will see that for some populations, it has a fundamental function beyond the ecosystem service, because these are nursery areas for fish and spawning grounds too. This also allows them to develop horticultural activities or harvesting arks, etc. This means that at the local level, in various sectors, particularly agriculture, the populations set an example. Let us take the case of Serer agriculture which has always been considered an example with the way it is rotational. With a rotational system, part of the field is always left fallow, or serves as an enclosure or fattening and the other part is cultivated; which means that with the rotation, there is significant production and this contributes to better management of resources. This means that at the local level, there are various solutions proposed by the populations and which, in our opinion, deserve to be highlighted, promoted, documented. This also means that we are trying to ensure that research can meet the expectations of the population, that academics work more, are interested in these solutions so that we can do action research. Indeed, there is a lot of research that has been done, but it remains to be seen whether the latter has been well-appropriated at the local level, whether it has been sufficiently assimilated by the population and whether it has been done in taking into account local demand. This means that there is really a real link to be made so that our research meets the expectations of the populations more and that we make sure that it is well assimilated, because it is done with the populations.

How can these local solutions be used to address a problem as global as climate change? Is the research you are talking about one of the answers?

The issue of climate change is a global issue, but it has answers at the local level. So it is a question of ensuring that the issue is reduced to its smallest dimension. It is an issue. I spoke to you about how it manifests itself through coastal erosion. For coastal erosion, populations in certain areas do what is called polderization in order to reclaim land from the sea. There are some who build dikes to protect themselves. This is knowledge that they develop themselves. We also talked about the preservation of the mangrove and I mentioned the case of the sacred wood. Currently, we are talking about the carbon market to promote the efforts that forest countries are making in terms of forest preservation. So, why in the Casamance area, those who are part of this dynamic, could they not benefit from the carbon market if the examples of the sacred wood make it possible to preserve thousands of hectares? I spoke about the Serer agricultural system, it is a form of adaptation of how to better value resources to better take advantage of the land without necessarily degrading it. In fact, what has pushed us, for the most part, to arrive at this degradation, there is indeed the climatic or environmental factor, if I can generally put it that way, but there are also strategies and cultivation methods that have not been appropriate at all. For example, cash crops, peanuts for example, where we were forced to exploit thousands of hectares which, after the harvest, leave the fields bare and with wind and water erosion, these areas have become increasingly infertile for cultivation.

This climate week was structured around carbon sobriety, fairness, inclusiveness. What is it really about down to earth for the reader when we talk about policies sensitive to sensitive politics?

When we look globally, when we take the issue of climate, we say to ourselves that the human, anthropogenic factor is decisive. The human factor is decisive because for centuries, we used fossil fuels, whether coal, gas, oil. Very important products in the world market and the economy. We realized that by using these fossil fuels, it had an impact on the atmosphere. We said to ourselves that since it is proven and scientifically proven that it is these fossil fuels that have led us into this situation of climate change, we should reduce the use of these fossil fuels. This is one of the reasons why we talked about carbon sobriety, that is to say, we no longer emit carbon as we did before and we try to find alternatives that are not polluting, such as renewable energies, solar, wind, hydraulic, etc. These are often the aspects that we try to promote, but we must not forget that when talking about this issue of fossil fuels, it has been indicated that it is not a sustainable resource. They have a limited duration. And the question we ask ourselves is what should the alternatives be? Non-state actors have made climate finance their hobby horse, but today, don’t you feel like you’re preaching in the wilderness since people don’t react every time you talk about it?

Yes, but it’s still a right that we ask for funding because it is stipulated in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that developed countries must support developing countries in dealing with climate change, mainly by providing them with the resources needed to do so. And there was therefore this commitment which is registered at the level of the convention, commitments of the leaders which were made at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, to say that they were going to finance developing countries to the tune of 100 billion dollars by 2020. It is a commitment and they were not forced to make it, but they considered it necessary that the question of climate be posed acutely, such as some countries are currently experiencing drought. In the Horn of Africa alone, there have been three successive years of drought which have killed more than 40 million people.