African leaders on Tuesday rallied in a virtual summit calling for scaled-up actions and financing to combat the effects of climate change, which are already being felt on the continent of 1.3 billion people.
The Leaders’ Dialogue on the Africa COVID-Climate Emergency saw representatives discussing the twin challenges of facing the COVID-19 pandemic alongside climate change.
“Africa remains a continent with immense opportunities if we act now to contain the pandemic, deal with the serious debt burdens and work on plans and tools to tackle climate change,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.
Presidents from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Kenya and other countries talked about the need for support to accelerate efforts against climate change.
“Africa contributed just 3 percent of global emissions, yet we are the continent which ... is already paying the biggest price,” Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba said.
“Every day, the thunderstorms seem more violent, flooding is more frequent and droughts more severe ... our crops are failing. People are being forced to flee their homes, becoming climate refugees,” he added. “Sea levels are rising, potentially drowning cities ... The oceans are turning to acid and salt is penetrating croplands, causing further serious challenges to food security.”
African Development Bank Group president Akinwumi Adesina said that developed nations have a responsibility to support those in Africa, as it is the lowest emitter of carbon, but faces the worst consequences of climate change.
“Ten of the top 12 countries most at risk of drought are in Africa. Eight out of the top 12 countries affected by agricultural risks are also in Africa,” he said. “Yet Africa does not get the resources it needs to adapt to climate change. Globally, only 10 percent of climate finance goes into adaptation, and Africa has received only 3 percent of global climate finance.”
He said the bank’s goal is to mobilize US$25 billion for climate adaptation over the next four years.
BEIJING BAILOUT: Pyongyang’s economic woes would not lead to famine because China will not let that happen due to its fear of a pro-US unified Korea, experts say North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for another “arduous march” to fight severe economic difficulties, for the first time comparing them to a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands. Kim had previously said his nation faces its “worst-ever” situation due to several factors — including the COVID-19 pandemic, US-led sanctions and natural disasters in the summer last year — but it is the first time he has publicly drawn a parallel with the deadly famine. North Korea monitoring groups have not detected any signs of mass starvation or a humanitarian disaster, but Kim’s comments still suggest how seriously he views
The COVID-19 variant discovered in South Africa can “break through” Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study released on Saturday found, although its prevalence in the country is low and the research has not been peer reviewed. The study in Israel compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated people with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics. The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1 percent of all the COVID-19
RARE ADMISSION: A top Chinese expert was the first to publicly address the efficacy of the nation’s vaccines as it aims to inoculate 40 percent of its population by June China is considering mixing different COVID-19 vaccines to improve the relatively low efficacy of its existing options, a top health expert told a conference in Chengdu on Saturday. Authorities have to “consider ways to solve the issue that efficacy rates of existing vaccines are not high,” Chinese media outlet The Paper reported, citing Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Gao Fu (高福). His comments mark the first time a top Chinese expert has publicly alluded to the relatively low efficacy of the country’s vaccines, as China forges ahead in its mass vaccination campaign and exports its jabs around the world. China
A years-long David and Goliath fight which has seen two Australian surfers take on a Chinese-linked company over alleged damage of an idyllic Fijian island has come to its conclusion after a court handed down a guilty verdict against the developers yesterday. The case has been described by Pacific legal experts as a “watershed” moment that tested Fijian environmental laws, as well as the willingness of the nation — which presents itself as a global climate leader — to “walk the walk” on environmental issues. Freesoul, a Chinese-linked company, in 2018 began work on Malolo Island, with plans to build Fiji’s largest
RSS