President Nana Akufo-Addo has opined that poorer countries are disappointed by the failure of the wealthy nations to honour their commitment of providing US$100 billion to assist in the fight against climate change.
According to the President, “Ghana acknowledges the importance and effect of climate change and the urgent need to combat it and we acknowledge equally the importance of developing our development. We believe that the balance must be struck and maintained between our social, economic and environmental imperatives.
“We are naturally disappointed by the failure of the wealthy nations to honour their commitments of making available US$100 billion annually to the poorer countries to assist us in the fight against climate change and by the unavailability of the technology transfer that will help us find sustainable ways of charting a path out of this existential crisis.”
He was speaking at the 2021 COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday (2 November 2021).
He said even though we, in Africa, are the least of the contributors to this phenomenon, responsible for less than four percent (4%) of the global volume of carbon emissions, we suffer the most because our agrarian and resource-driven economies are peculiarly susceptible to the effects of climate change, and our capacity to withstand its shocks is weak.
He said the Almighty has blessed our lands with abundant natural resources, and it would be wholly unfair for the world to demand that Africa abandons the exploitation of these same resources needed to finance her development, and help us to cope better with the threat of climate change, at a time when many countries on the continent have only just discovered them.
The development and industrialisation of the wealthy nations of today were also hinged on the exploitation of their natural resources. This development came at the expense of pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. Even today, the western world is responsible for 76% of carbon emissions.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
