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South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, while addressing the COP28 in Dubai, called upon world leaders to do more for vulnerable countries that disproportionately bear of impact of the climate crisis
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, while addressing the COP28 in Dubai, called upon world leaders to do more for vulnerable countries that disproportionately bear the impact of the climate crisis. He highlighted that African countries were among the most vulnerable to the effects of a rapidly changing climate. Historically low levels of development, he said, had severely impaired capacity as industrialized countries accounted for most carbon emissions. Ramaphosa is among more than 170 world leaders set to address the United Nations climate conference in Dubai.
On the first day of the climate conference, nearly all nations finalized the creation of a fund to compensate countries struggling to cope with loss and damage caused by climate change, as reported by www.trendsnafrica.com, though a concrete plan of action has yet to emerge. The host UAE and Germany have assured to contribute US$100 million each towards to corpus of the fund.
While welcoming the statement of Sultan al-Jaber, the president of the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, that US$420 million were committed in the first hour of the announcement, Ramaphosa welcomed the move but called for scaled-up grant finance looking at the huge challenge before the world because of the climate change. He underscored that there could be no substitute for new, predictable, scalable, and appropriate public finance to support and help developing economy countries build climate resilience.
In the meantime, environment activists pointed out that the contributions thus far received were short of the requirements. They also pointed out the inadequate contribution by the United States. A recent estimate by the UN has put the current requirements for addressing global climate-related activities, particularly for transition to clean energy, would be upwards of US$ 350 billion annually.
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The United States has pledged US$17.5 million. However, the leaders of the two biggest carbon-polluting nations — responsible for more than 44% of the world’s emissions — aren’t there to get the in-person message. U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping are sitting out this COP, just weeks after announcing a bilateral agreement to help cut down on methane emissions.
