Environment ministers from 38 African countries met in Abuja, Nigeria, on Monday to discuss climate change and prepare for the United Nations global climate conference to be held on the island of Bali, Indonesia, in December.
The Bali meeting is expected to produce a new global climate deal to curb carbon emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, while the Abuja meeting was to agree on a common African position to be presented at Bali.
One of Africa’s priorities was to participate in the activities of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the chairperson of the African group on climate change, Nigeria’s Samuel Adejuwon, said.
The CDM is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialised countries with a greenhouse-gas-reduction commitment to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries.
It allows net global greenhouse-gas emissions to be reduced at a much lower global cost by financing emission-reduction projects in developing countries where costs are lower than in industrialised countries.
Nigerian Environment Minister Halima Alao called for more incentives for African countries that would enable them to tackle the hazards of climate change, while expressing concern that Africa has the least capacity to cope with the consequences of climate change.
Africa is ”most vulnerable” because its ability to implement measures ”largely depends on availability and access to funds and technology”, he said.
Developed countries have hampered efforts to implement the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, she added.
”African countries have waited endlessly for transfer of technology that should enhance our efforts toward the implementation of the convention and the protocol,” she said.
”Industrialised countries have a duty to work assiduously toward the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol,” she added. — Sapa-dpa