President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday called on African countries to work together to fight climate change.
The president was on a two-day state visit to the East African country where he met his Kenyan counterpart, William Ruto, to discuss ways on how South Africa and Kenya could work together to achieve common goals, including the devastating effects of climate change.
Speaking at the South Africa-Kenya Business Forum, Ramaphosa said African countries had to work together to achieve common goals. He also slammed international leaders for not keeping to their promise to cut carbon emissions.
Ramaphosa said African countries were being ravaged by climate change, droughts and floods.
He agreed with Ruto that African countries needed to work together to fight climate change.
“Having just returned from COP27… where the stark realities of climate change were demonstrated to all, as Africa and African leaders, we made it very clear that our countries cannot afford further rise in global temperatures.
“But we also collectively called upon the more developed countries to honour their commitments. They have been making commitments over and over again.”
“At COP21 in Paris, they made a commitment that they would be making US$100 billion (R1.7 trillion) a year. They have not met those commitments.
“Collectively, a number of Africa leaders were there. All of us (had) one message – we said we want them to address the loss and the damage that our countries are suffering from.
“Once again, Africa is showing a great deal of integration of thought, effort, and articulation by saying to the world ‘we want you to address loss and damage… we are hardly responsible as a continent for the damage that has been done and continues to be done to the climate,” said Ramaphosa.
“We want you to pay up, it is about time that the money is brought to Africa to enable us to address the damage they have caused to our to climate.”
Earlier this week, Ramaphosa, who was speaking at the UN Climate Conference 2022 (COP27) on Tuesday, said for the sake of the African continent and the world, leaders needed to agree to dramatic increase in global mitigation ambition to keep the world on the 1.5ºC pathway.
Ramaphosa said just like other vulnerable regions, Africa needed to build adaptive capacity, foster resilience and address loss and damage, as was agreed by all at Paris COP21.
IOL