Africa-Press – Ethiopia. President Sahle-Work Zewde expressed Ethiopia’s unwavering commitment to work with fellow Africans and other global partners to achieve the priorities and the long-term objective of making the planet comfortable for present and future generations.
In her speech at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, the president said Africa has tried its best to make its voice heard to speak with one voice and alert partners of the disastrous consequences, noting that Ethiopia has been on the forefront of this fight.
“Today it is about climate, but the continent’s major issues such as peace, stability that require our common position. It has been increasingly difficult to explain to our people, to the youth, in particular, this contradiction – resource-rich continent, and yet poor people.”
She also stressed the need for sufficient research publications on climate change to get accurate representations of Africa’s special needs and circumstances that would build evidence-based for advancing the key ask of the continent,
“We must emphasize on investing in African research institutions to produce regionally relevant science that can inform the different working group under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This endeavor requires a strong commitment from both African scientists and the international community, accompanied by the financial capacity necessary to deliver these research publications.”
President Sahle-Work said Ethiopia has witnessed in the past decades including the last consecutive years a persistence drought, flooding, locust invasion where millions severely affected.
The country has been carrying out different practical policy and action interventions as steps to contribute to emission removal and building adaptation capacity, she further added.
“Building climate-resilient green economy is one of the pillars of our 10 year national development plan. As part of our strategic consideration, we have launched the long-term low emission and climate-resilient development strategy that has been submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the aspiration to achieve net-zero emission and building climate-resilient development by 2050,”
She recalled that the Ethiopian Green Legacy Initiative, that was launched in 2019, has succeeded in planting 25 billion seedlings on the degraded landscape by mobilizing the volunteers throughout the nation.
“The Initiative helped for the development of more than 120,000 nurseries and created more than 180,000 jobs throughout the country. More importantly, the GLI is intended to inculcate the green behavior in each of our citizens. The greening initiative has been scaled-up into fruit-bearing perennial trees thereby directly linking it with the country’s food system transformation strategy.”
In the agriculture sector, the president indicated that Ethiopia has achieved notable progress in enhancing its wheat production, effectively transforming a deficit of 15 million metric tons in 2019/2020 into a surplus of 65 million quintals in 2022/23. This achievement has enabled Ethiopia to meet not only its domestic needs but also helped to commence wheat export.
“Ethiopia’s plan was to cultivate 2 million hectares of farmland during the dry season alone in 2023. The success of wheat production is critical for the country’s efforts to enhance food security and to achieve food sovereignty.”
In terms of renewable energy production, she said Ethiopia is also investing on green energy projects, such hydroelectric, wind, solar and geothermal energy sectors as well as promoting modern rural cooking technologies.
Ethiopia is striving to finance climate actions proactively and persistently as means of systematically addressing the economic challenges of the country.
Accordingly, she said the government has invested over 82 million USD from 2011 to 2019, mobilized from domestic, bilateral, multilateral sources, as well as from international climate financing institutions on climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and programs in agriculture, energy, transport, industry, forestry, urban development and health sectors.
Despite this investment, the president indicated that Ethiopia still needs to attract and mobilize a significant finance to support its climate-compatible development agenda.
“We still count on our partners to fulfill their commitments to developing countries and committing themselves for the new challenge of setting new quantified finance goals in the coming years. We also strongly urged multilateral financial institutions to undergo a serious reform that fits for the purpose for the needs and circumstances of developing countries rather than fueling the historical debt accumulated on the shoulders of developing countries and mainly Africa.”
The future depends on our decisions now, she said stressing the need for urgent actions in limiting global warming into 1.5 degree Celsius to avoid the worst impact. Eight years after its signature, ensuring the implementation of the Paris Agreement is not an option again.
The president expressed Ethiopia’s unwavering commitment to work with fellow Africans and other global partners to achieve the priorities and the long-term objective of making the planet comfortable for present and future generations.
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