The Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote: “If you have passed through life without an opponent, no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”

There is value in making mistakes and, in so doing, finding your feet. What does not kill you makes you stronger.

It must be said that when times change the old ways of doing things lose their meaning and relevance. Sometimes angry shouting is necessary but at other times it does not work – and it is not because those you are shouting at have not adapted to your methods. Many activists, thinkers and writers are starting to re-evaluate climate activism and advocacy in the new world.

Puritan acts of nobility are not free from the hidden and unintended consequences of action. By this I mean that you shut down something that is offensive, not realising that, by doing so, you win some ground – a certain Pyrrhic victory – for public theatre, while causing more unintended harm than good.

Consequential trade-offs must be measured in terms of their unintended consequences, not short-term gains.

Such recipes, which take on evangelical missions akin to the “coal or gas plant” regime change analogy, falter because outsiders have not thought through, or paid enough attention to, the wider consequences beyond the coal or gas plant and the hidden effects on others. Those who instigate change, as is often the case, do not live where the consequences of change are most keenly felt. We are, as it were, in two different worlds: one where the lived experience pursues the ideal, often from a position of privilege, and the other, where people must live with what that ideal does to them. There is an obsession with form, not the substance. A thing must look like it does elsewhere, but how it is experienced is left as a detail for those who must bear the burden of the consequence and fend for themselves.

In the realm of consequentialism lies the co-existence of ethical dilemmas – one aspiration conflicts with another. It is not simply about doing it, but about how to do it. In the case of fossil fuel regime change, you cannot pursue one objective without simultaneously putting the necessary solution in place. Sometimes the whole structure of the economy has to change.

Addressing both challenges calls for solutions that lie beyond the jurisdiction of single-cause activism. I was confronted with this once when someone asked me why Africans were using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as if they have committed a mortal sin. I asked: What is the trade-off here? Electricity access is poor, often very expensive, and households therefore resort to multiple fuels: coal, wood, charcoal or paraffin. The displacement of LPG will happen naturally if more cheaper solutions enter the market.

Besides having turned a large share of the electricity system to renewables, it is not the same as saying it is affordable.

Climate regime change predispositions must keep this calculus in mind: What is the lesser of two evils?

The African continent has enormous opportunities to redefine climate action. States cannot do this on their own. An ecosystem of implementation-orientated State and non-State entities should embody this spirit of focused intent on delivery. But it is important that we own and lead these processes, following Seneca’s admonition.

William Easterly wrote the seminal book titled The White Man’s Burden, a critique of the Western development assistance model, where donor aid is often tied to soft power, while the implementation of development is handled by those closest to the aid machinery.

Easterly was referring to aid agencies, international NGOs and, more recently, over the past decade, the growing influence of big consulting firms. Aid effectively builds a runway for an industry of aid and philanthropy monetisers prepared to carry the “burden” of developing those in need.

Easterly, in a recent collection titled Violent Saviors, continues the argument along similar lines. He does not state it explicitly, but suggests that the undercurrent of development assistance reflects what the philosopher Hegel called a “master/slave” dynamic. Since some societies have advanced in knowledge and technology and have better economies and State systems, they assume a certain authority to transmit their development models to others. Some tenements of this thinking still persist in development theory.

There are similar tendencies within the climate and philanthropy spaces. Climate “assistance’’ is itself a form of development assistance and is not free from the external provider’s viewpoint, rules and obligations imposed on the intended beneficiary.

Replicating models of climate activism so that they both symbolically and substantively resemble universal models and grand plans raises the question of whether universal forms of action are appropriate for worlds that are not the same as the world, or the worldview, of the giver.