Doha summit: Is Africa fit to play the climate change game?

The private sector can also contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including the important tool of public-private partnerships. A green economy, though somehow distant, seems like the way to go. Talk is cheap, it is time to act. Action is vital and urgent.

The whole agenda of the just concluded conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha, Qatar in December last year was to review the 15-year-old Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions and greenhouse gases, primarily from carbon dioxide produced from burning fossil fuels, though no tangible results are practically visible to date). The conference also debated the possible extension of the protocol due to expire.
The development goal is to achieve the dream of a legally binding, consensus-driven international climate change treaty, develop new finance models to address climate change, especially in Africa, and deal with serious problems affecting people in communities as food and water.
The mood was of greater ambition and action on climate change through developing a realistic policy framework to embrace and enhance a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, relevant environmental laws, justice and governance, and scaling up voluntary actions to reduce short-lived climate change or initiatives to support climate change adaptation in Africa.

The summit, which brought together world leaders and thousands of participants, saw the Kyoto Protocol extended to 2020, though it has no stricter obligations and raised a number of questions about governments’ ability to enact effective environmental legislation, foster environmentally sound technology and create enabling policy and institutional framework for sustainable development in their respective countries.

To us as stakeholders, it was an alarm signal that the whole process needs to be redrawn in order to deliver what is necessary.
Climate change is a term used to describe a gradual shift in one or more climate elements from a long term norm.

It is caused by factors that include oceanic processes, variations in solar radiation received by the earth, plate tectonics and volcanic eruptions, and human-induced alterations of the natural world.

These latter effects are currently causing global warming, and climate change is often used to describe human-specific impacts.

In Africa, it has manifested itself in form of global warming and climate variability. It is having a real impact and needs urgent attention, urgent preparation and the future is now.

It is affecting the stability of land production for different types of crops, livestock, and fish and increasing incidence of pests and diseases and affecting the functioning of biological diversity and ecosystems.

What we are witnessing today is not an aberration but rather a curtain raiser in the bleak future.

Practically speaking, concerted efforts with all-embracing objectives should be focused on building low carbon and resilient communities with projects that are resource efficient and socially inclusive, enhanced by blue prints regarding environmental conservation and sustainable development as strategic priorities.
The Ministry of Finance’s report on Millennium Development Goals 2011 indicates that Uganda has made great progress towards achieving most of the targets, but lags behind when it comes to achieving goal seven, which is to ensure environmental sustainability.

Action is vital and urgent with comprehensive and practical working mechanisms on green innovations to enhance growth in income and employment through investments aimed at reducing carbon emissions enhance energy and resource efficiency to prevent ecosystem and biodiversity degradation.

Today, pollution problems have increased to the degree that polluted air and water, and other environmental hazards, follow the would-be urban escapist to his country hideaway. A possibly district point is that modern pollutants present unprecedented threats to the health and safety of man.

In Uganda, the Doha summit can only be relevant and our actions can count if we whole heartedly engage in focused tree planting activities (Social and commercial forestry) and sustainable conservation of forest/wetland ecosystems and biological diversity. Environmental issues are based handled with the participation and involvement of all concerned citizens (and institutions) at the relevant level.

The private sector can also contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including the important tool of public-private partnerships. A green economy, though somehow distant, seems like the way to go. Talk is cheap, it is time to act. Action is vital and urgent.

Saying no to climate change and its implications especially to the most vulnerable, poverty-stricken Africa means to work out the equation down to the wire.

The writer is the President of the Sustainable World Initiative-East Africa.

Email:majormeaud@gmail.com