Africa: Historical Announcements Made At UN Climate Change Summit As Developing Nations Commit To Restoring Forests
By Staff Writer
Bold measures to immediately tackle climate change were announced on Tuesday 23 by government, business, finance and civil society leaders attending a one week historic Climate Summit convened by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in New York, Unites States (US).
Ki-moon has been in the fore front in lobbying for workable solutions based on clear vision anchored in domestic and multinational actions.
“Today was a great day; a historic day. Never before have so many leaders gathered to commit to action on climate change,” Ki-moon said.
The summit attracted a mix of international players who announced their vision and commitment for reaching a universal and meaningful climate agreement in 2015, outlining their plans of how to reduce emissions to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius, enhance resistance to climate change and mobilize financing for climate action.
The UN chief said public and private sources showed the way forward for mobilizing the needed resources as leaders expressed strong support for the Green Climate Fund with a total of $2.3 billion in pledges and others committed contributions by November 2014.
“A new coalition of Governments and private business entities has also announced their commitment to mobilize upwards of $200 billion for financing low-carbon and climate-resilient development,” he said.
Ki-moon emphasized that formation of new coalitions will help meet the full scope of the climate challenge citing the first Global Agricultural Alliance which was launched yesterday to enable 500 million farmers worldwide to practice climate-smart agriculture by 2030.
Oil and gas industry representatives, along national Governments and civil society organizations, committed to identify and reduce methane emissions by 2020.
“Also 200 cities around the world with a combined population of 400 million people, pledged new commitments to reduce annual emissions by between 12.4 and 16.4 per cent,” he added.
He urged the participants to maintain the spirit of compromise and commitment that characterized the discourse at the Summit. “We must fulfill and expand on all the pledges and initiatives brought forward today.”
President François Hollande of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany pledged $1 billion each, as European Union pledged to adopt the 40% emissions reductions target this October with China announcing that it will peak its emissions as soon as possible and double its support for the South-South Cooperation.
“We have heard significant pledges of finance and resources,” UN Secretary general said. “Finance is the enabler of what we want to achieve. This morning, you have acknowledged its crucial importance. Private finance is out there, and public finance can be the lever to access it.”
US President Barrack Obama said that of all the immediate challenges world leaders were set to address this week during the General Assembly’s high-level segment – terrorism, inequality disease – there is one issue that would define the contours of the current century more than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.
Meanwhile, the restoration of over 30 million hectares of degraded forest lands was the highlight of the day with African countries; Ethiopia, DRC Congo, Uganda and Guatemala among others leading the pack in committing to the course in order to achieve a global Bonn challenge to restore 150 million hectares of deforested and degraded lands by 2020.
“The courageous leadership demonstrated by these countries and by the wide range of global leaders in support of the New York Declaration on Forests, underlines that nature-based solutions such as forest landscape restoration can play a vital role in our fight against climate change and addressing the fundamental need to reduce emissions,” said Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
IUCN estimates that meeting the 150 million hectare challenge target alone could add approximately US$ 85 billion to national and local economies and remove an additional 1 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year.
UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said pledges by African and Latin American countries to combat deforestation and more than double restoration targets will bring significant climate benefits as it inspires initiatives that will contribute significantly to poverty reduction, economic development and food security across countries and regions."
The next summit milestone meetings of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will be held in Lima-Peru and Paris-France in December 2014 and 2015.