"Our survival depends on how we tackle climate change as a cross-cutting issue", UN Seminar concludes

ECA 7 June, 2007 - A screening of former US president Al Gore's feature documentary film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, organized for UN staff members generated heated and animated self-reflection on the continent's failure to make climate change a cross-cutting issue that demands urgent and immediate action. The screening was a joint ECA/UNEP Addis Ababa office event to conclude the week's focus on World Environment Day.

“The facts have been clear for a very long time”, said Strike Mkandla, UNEP Addis Ababa office head, waiving a 750-page document containing scientific data, generated by UNEP and leading scientists on the impact of climate change on the world's poor and added, “Africa stands to lose the most from the phenomenon and although the impact is already being felt in all areas of our lives, we have been slow to connect the dots.” He noted that the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention to Combat Climate Change (UNFCC) that calls countries to commit to reduce their green house gas emissions or engage in emissions trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gasses, “should be taken seriously at the programmatic level by all UN agencies as it is not a UNEP issue alone”.

Echoing Mkandla, Josue Dione, Director, Food Security and Sustainable Development Division pointed out that climate change impacts on our economies, food production and sustenance. “We need to reflect this phenomenon in day-to-day programmatic focus in poverty-reduction strategies and trade and macro-economic analysis,” he said.

The film makes reference to Lake Chad, which has seen a dramatic shrinking to one-twentieth its original size in the early sixties as a result of a combination of factors, including warming climate increased desertification in the surrounding regions and human demand for irrigation. The negative economic impact on this reduction on fisher folk and related sectors is not difficult to imagine. For instance, fisher folk have had to find alternative means of generating income. The film references the snows of Mount Killimanjaro, now reduced to a minimum and whose majestic glaciers have sadly dissipated in the last 30 years.

The discussions pointed to other alarming occurrences, including the El Nino phenomenon, recurrence of extreme drought in Eastern Africa and the lower-than-ever levels of water in Ghana's Akosombo dam. "Ghana faces the challenge of what actions to take in order to export electricity and provide enough electricity to its own people in the future," said a participant. Africa's coastal regions, as well as the Island nation States are at risk from rising sea levels and the impact of the damage to coral reefs. In 2005, according to UNEP, the Pacific Island of Vanuatu recorded the first official "climate refugees", evacuated from islands, drowning under rising sea levels.

“In Mozambique, during some of the worst floods witnessed in that region, a woman gave birth on a tree, where was the economic analysis of the events that occurred and continue to occur?” asked Mkandla, adding, “This is a wake-up call, and there is a lot we can do to merge the environment and economic discourse.”

“We should not wait for Al Gore, Sir Nicholas Stern and Jeffrey Sachs to come and tell us what we already know about climate change, but have failed to champion as a result of our own self-marginalization”, said Mkandla, urging for multi-pronged strategies and analysis that informs policy makers on coping mechanisms.