- South Africa’s Minister of Forestry Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, has cranked up the heat on developed countries.
- She was speaking at the pre-CoP27 negotiations in the Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday.
“Despite having contributed insignificantly to climate change, Africa has continued to make substantial investments towards climate change adaptation, using mostly its own domestic resources. This has been necessitated by the failure of developed countries that bear the historical responsibility to fully honour their obligation to provide means of implementation support to developing countries and inadequate or inappropriate multilateral and private sector financing,” said Creecy.
‘For too long these issues of critical importance to Africa (climate change) have seen only process-related outcomes in the UNFCCC negotiations, due to the mitigation-centric approach of developed countries’ – Barbera Creecy
Creecy explained that COP 27 is a critical moment for all of us in Africa. “This COP, which is taking place on African soil, must deliver meaningful and substantive progress on adaptation, Loss and Damage and means of implementation support for African and other developing countries. COP27 further needs to focus on supporting a people-centred, just and equitable transition in the developing world. The urgent need is to adapt now, while we build resilience for the future. We can only avoid loss and minimize damage with the appropriate scale of public finance that does not exacerbate the indebtedness of Africa,”
Link to Minister Creecy’s full speech HERE
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
