VP appeals for clarity on climate change financing
Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan has called on developed nations to honor their promise for funding to mitigate effects of climate change in Africa.
Speaking in Addis Ababa at the 33rd African Union (AU) Ordinary Conference for Heads of State and Government early this week, the VP also urged African countries to seek alternate sources of finance to contain effects of climate change.
At the global climate change conference in Paris in 2015 where the current framework was negotiated, developed countries reaffirmed the commitment to mobilize USD100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, and continue mobilizing finance at the level of USD100 billion a year until 2025.
The VP said African countries contribute less to greenhouse gas emissions but they are suffering from the consequences of climate change while the promise of funding for mitigation by big polluters was not forthcoming.
Effects of climate change are seen in pulling back development efforts in African countries due to destruction of infrastructures from hurricanes, floods and drought, she said, urging the setting up of a special fund and alternative sources in that regard.
Developed countries emitting more greenhouse gases pledged in the Paris Agreement to avail more funding to mitigate the effects of climate change especially for developing countries, she stated.
The Paris Agreement is based on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) relating to greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance that was signed in 2016.
Representatives of 196 state parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Le Bourget, near the French capital of Paris reached the framework accord and it was adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015.
As of November 2019, all UNFCCC members had signed the agreement, with 188 having become party to it and the only significant emitters which are not parties are Iran and Turkey, observers noted.
The agreement's long-term temperature goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 °C.
This would substantially reduce the risks and impacts of climate change, through the peaking of emissions as soon as possible, in order to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases.
The balance is meant to be achieved in the second half of the 21st century, as it also aims to increase the ability of parties to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change.
They also need to make financial flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development, a conference brochure intoned.
The issue of education was also discussed at the AU meeting in which Tanzania said it backs the call that requires African countries to increase their budgets to the education sector to enable African youth receive quality and competitive education.
A report on the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) tabled by the new AU chairman, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa cited Zimbabwe as having ratified and signed the mechanism.
VP Suluhu praised the country for that achievement, noting that this is despite the hard times Zimbabwe was passing through due to economic sanctions, among other factors.
