TANZANIA is calling upon the international community to live up to its commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate finance.
To tackle climate change and its negative impacts, world leaders at the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris on December 12, 2015 reached a breakthrough by adopting the historic Paris Agreement.
The agreement sets long-term goals which among other things require developed countries to provide financial resources to assist developing countries with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.
Minister for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Dr Damas Ndumbaro, made the call during the commemoration of the UN Day held in Dar es Salaam on Monday.
“We need to remind the international community that despite having contributed the least to global warming and having the lowest emissions; Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate change impacts largely because of its low level of resilience and adaptation capacities,” said Dr Ndumbaro.
In this regard, he attributed factors like enhanced capacity building, technology transfer, support for adaptation and mitigation measures, as well as the creation of independent loss and damage financial facilities to be implemented to help in the fight against climate change.
Such a call comes as the 27th Conference of Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is expected to convene in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt within the coming two weeks.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly last month, Vice-President Dr Philip Mpango expressed Tanzania’s commitment to scale up ambitious adaptation and mitigation targets.
He expressed the need to immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, in limiting global warming.
“The international community to ensure reliable access to climate finance, abide by their commitments to the Paris Agreement, enhance capacity-building and technology transfer, support adaptation and mitigation measures and create a financial facility on independent loss and damage,” maintained the VP.
In emphasizing Africa’s need for a just transition to renewable energy, he also called for global financing and the implementation of hydrocarbon projects to be lifted.
He added that “Our Sovereign rights to pursue transformative projects should be respected…carbon credit markets must be transparent and must benefit Africa fairly.
