Uganda calls for action to save world from climate catastrophe

CLIMATE CHANGE

State minister for environment Kitutu Kimono Mary Goretti has told over 100 ministers from all over the world negotiating a final deal on battling climate action at the UN climate summit in Poland that Uganda has suffered enough negative effects of climate change and something must be done now to reverse the situation.

"We have continuously witnessed the extreme weather events resulting in recurrent landslides in the highlands of eastern and western parts of the country as well as surrounding lowlands," said Kitutu adding that, "as if these were not enough punishment, the country has equally been hit hardest by myriad of prolonged droughts, heat waves, storms and infestations of crop pests and diseases."

Kitutu was speaking at the high-level segment of the ongoing United Nations climate change conference in Katowice, Poland which ends this weekend.

The Special Report on 1.5 degrees Celsius released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) warns that the planet is heating up faster than anticipated and that the world has only less than 12 years to take ambitious action to avoid catastrophes.

It indicates that climate change will lead to more flooding, famine, drought and disease in developing countries such as Uganda, negatively impacting millions of people.

Kitutu told the developed countries to honor their pledges of mobilising the USD 100 billion per annually by the year 2020 to finance climate change adaption and mitigation measures worldwide.  

"The Katowice outcome must therefore provide for all the essential elements of finance to support the poor vulnerable countries tame the run-away climate change problem," she said.

But by December 13, 2018 a day before conclusion of the negotiations, no ambitious outcomes on climate financing had been reached.

Like Kitutu noted, most ministers of environment from Africa and other vulnerable countries stressed that the success of the Katowice negotiations will determine countless lives and existence.

Negotiations are aimed at coming up with a rule book that can be used by the 2015 Paris Agreement parties to measure and quantify progress in battling climate change.


While addressing a press conference at the summit, leaders of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), a group of 48 of the most vulnerable countries in the planet, said amidst prolonged floods, droughts and extreme weather events that devastate lives and economies, they will do whatever it takes to survive.