Africa, Climate Change, Combating Desertification and Drought, Development & Aid, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Headlines, Poverty & SDGs

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: If You Can’t Escape Climate Change, Adapt to It

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Nov 17 2006 (IPS) - A conference on climate change, about to wrap up in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, has heard that adaptation to the effects of shifting weather patterns can play a key role in efforts to address climate change – alongside the bid to lessen greenhouse gas emissions.

According to a report by the secretariat of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), ‘Technologies for Adaptation to Climate Change’, climate policies have concentrated on mitigation – slowing greenhouse emissions – for fear that highlighting adaptation options might reduce the urgency for mitigation.

However, delegates to the Nairobi meeting assert that mitigation and adaptation must go hand in hand if climate change is going to be dealt with effectively – a sentiment echoed by Kofi Annan, the outgoing U.N. Secretary-General.

“…Even as we seek to cut emissions, we must at the same time do far more to adapt to global warming and its effects. We must make it a higher priority to integrate the risks posed by climate change into strategies and programmes aimed at achieving the Millennium Development Goals,” Annan said in a speech to the conference, Wednesday.

Eight goals were agreed upon by global leaders in 2000; in part, they are aimed at reducing poverty and hunger, and achieving universal primary education – all by 2015.

However, many African governments lack the money needed for adaptation programmes says Richard Odingo, professor of geography specialising in climatology at the University of Nairobi. “Africa is susceptible to extreme weather events, but has limited to financial resources…External funding is necessary for countries on the continent to have active adaptation programmes,” he noted.

An adaptation fund is provided for in the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC in an effort to assist developing countries. However, details about how this initiative will be run are still being finalised at the Nairobi meeting.

The protocol focuses on the reduction in emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that many scientists argue are linked to rising temperatures – which in turn prompt climate change. It requires 35 industrialised nations to cut their combined emissions to five percent below 1990 levels, by 2012. Of the 189 states which have signed up to the UNFCCC, 165 have ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

The United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases (accounting for 25 percent of emissions by industrialised countries), has not yet ratified the protocol – signed while Bill Clinton was in power – which commits the country to a seven percent reduction in greenhouse gases. American officials have come under heavy criticism at the meeting in this regard, with calls for the U.S. to ratify the protocol.

Apart from a lack of resources for addressing climate change, another matter of concern for Africa is the shortage of technological skills.

“We lack technology on how to adopt shallow wells when rivers become seasonal, how to harvest rainwater on a large scale and how to tap ocean water for industrial use,” Juma Mgoo, an official in Tanzania’s natural resource ministry, told IPS.

The Nov. 6-17 meeting has brought together close to 6,000 delegates to find ways of dealing with climate change, which is expected to take a particular toll on developing nations ill-equipped to deal with it. Changing weather patterns are said to result in drought and floods, amongst others – climatic events that often lead to water and food insecurity.

“Our appeal is to get our development partners from the West concerned that even when they want to support developing countries, their support will not work if we do not care about climate change,” said George Krhoda, permanent secretary in Kenya’s ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

“Climate change costs us everything in investment. Apart from loss of lives and property, it puts a country back to zero point, when we have to replace bridges that have been swept away or roads that have been cut off by floods,” he told IPS, noting that it cost the government about 14,000 dollars to construct a kilometre of road.

Krhoda’ remarks come at a time when Kenya’s coastal region is experiencing heavy floods that have led to a section of the road linking it to Tanzania being cut off.

In addition to funds allocated for reconstruction of roads the like, government needs millions of dollars for providing relief to families affected by drought, something that has become a recurring phenomenon in the East African country.

 
Republish | | Print |


daughter of no worlds read online