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GOVERNMENT OF RWANDA Rwanda invites African Ministers to identify bold new mechanisms for addressing the challenges posed by climate change
The 3rd Ministerial Conference will focus on the identification of additional investments and financial flows to address the climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges. It will also assess the impact of climate change on the growth agenda and the Millennium Development Goals. The theme of the Conference is “Climate Change: Financing opportunities and challenges to achieve the MDGs in Africa. Action on climate change can no longer remain the sole business of scientists, environmentalists and researchers. The economic consequences of these very real changes in climate are serious, and come at a time at which our government – along with its counterparts across the African continent – continues to face significant challenges in attaining the Millennium Development Goals. Around three quarters of Rwandans rely on agriculture as their major source of income. Increases in temperature have been observed world-wide, particularly in the last fifty years, and flooding and droughts have become increasingly common across the region. The effects of continued and accelerated changes in climate are likely to affect some of Rwanda’s most vulnerable citizens disproportionately. Some studies suggest that an increase in temperature of only two-and-a-half degrees Celsius would reduce net revenues from farming across Africa by as much as $23 billion. African Ministers of Finance and those responsible for environmental issues, the Presidents of the World Bank and the African Development Bank, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Executive Secretary of UNECA, and Deputy Chairman of the African Commission and other Senior officials from around 20 African countries will gather on Thursday to begin their deliberations on the challenges posed by climate change, and to agree on a common African position on possible solutions for negotiation at a major meeting to be held in Copenhagen in December under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Previous global initiatives have resulted in funding being made available to African countries to facilitate climate change adaptation, though these funds have too often been difficult to access, insufficient in volume, and untimely. The root causes of climate change lie largely with the world’s developed economies and their unrivalled emissions of greenhouse gases, yet developing economies such as ours are overwhelmingly left to feel its impacts. Rwanda must continue to follow a low carbon pathway as we work towards the realization of our Vision 2020, but this will bring with it significant costs. The Kigali Conference will provide an opportunity to answer these questions: African countries have not taken advantage of the existing financing facilities (finances for climate change): how do we access them? Do we have concrete examples to present to them? This is precisely what Ministers of Finance and Environment will need to hear from experts: innovative and additional financing can be raised and accessing them is potentially beneficial to the environment and public finances. Notes for the Editor
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