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Kenyan leader in AU climate talks

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 16 – President Mwai Kibaki arrived in Ethiopia on Monday to attend African Union talks on Climate Change in readiness for the UN Copenhagen summit next month.

President Kibaki is leading a Kenyan delegation to the AU Summit of the committee of Ten Heads of State and Government on Climate Change in Addis Ababa.

“The Plane carrying the President and his entourage departed Jomo Kenyatta International Airport shortly after 1.30 pm,” a brief statement from the Presidential Press Service said.

The Addis Ababa Summit whose theme is ‘Towards an African Common Political Position on Climate change’ will decide on Africa’s common presentation to the world climate change Summit in Copenhagen.

During the Summit, the leaders will also strategise on pressing the developed world to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent by the year 2020.

Pressure has been mounting on the US and other industrialised countries to come up with firm targets and commitments to reduce carbon emissions and to work for the signing of a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen.

The African Leaders have been piling pressure on their industrialized counterparts to cut back on carbon emissions or compensate them for bearing the brunt of the resultant climatic change that is linked to the environmental pollution.

That pressure yielded initial fruits early this year when Britain announced it will spend €1 billion in helping poor countries deal with the effects of climatic change.

The money is to be disbursed by global financial institutions such as the World Bank.

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The richest countries currently account for 75 per cent of total global carbon emissions resulting from industrial activities, according to the UN.

Kenya is among African countries that have suffered prolonged drought and periodic floods linked to climate change that affect millions of subsistence farmers.

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