Climate and Development

Africa has contributed least to the current climate change. In fact, UN statisticians have found that only 3.6% of global C02-emissions come from the African continent (see figure above).

Two of my colleagues were in Rwanda last week for a conference of African Ministers on climate change and whilst there they caught up with Catherine Namugala, the Zambian Minister of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources.
She did a little video for ONE, talking about climate change in Zambia. She says that the adverse effects of climate change are definitely being felt in Zambia, most notably for subsistence farmers and others living off the land. Changing rainfall patterns as part of climate change are leading to increased flooding and drought for example.

Last week my colleague Oliver Buston and I attended the Financing for Development Conference in Kigali, where Finance and Environment Ministers discussed achievable goals for the Copenhagen climate change summit in December.

Edith Jibunoh and I are in Rwanda this week, attending the Third African Ministerial Conference on Financing for Development. The theme of the meeting is ‘climate change financing’. African governments will be discussing the funds they need to adapt to the potentially devastating impacts of climate change in their countries. I will be blogging more on this in coming days…
It’s my first time in Rwanda, the country most well known for the genocide of 1994. Less well known is what Rwandans have achieved in the 15 years since.

Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Stanislas Kamanzi, Minister of the Environment of Rwanda, and Andreas Carlgren, Minister of the Environment of Sweden have an op-ed in AllAfrica.com today on the challenges and opportunities of climate change for the developing world.
Some excerpts below, the full piece here.