Ethiopia's first national conference on Climate Change

MFA - Ethiopia’s first ever national conference on climate change was held yesterday at the UNECA conference center. Organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with Oxfam America, and opened by Prime Minister Meles, ministers, academicians, members of the diplomatic community, representatives of civil society and the private sector attended.

In his opening remarks the Prime Minister pointed out that although Ethiopia’s contribution to global warning was negligible, it was necessary to respond in an intelligent manner to the enormous challenges of climate change: “we can only succeed to adapt to climate change if we fight poverty effectively and generate the resources needed for the purpose. Climate change is an additional reason why sustained and fast economic growth is a matter of life and death for our country”. The Prime Minister detailed important aspects of Ethiopia’s development strategy that were following an essentially carbon-neutral path: “The extensive re-afforestation and environmental rehabilitation programs we are carrying out means, among other things, our capacity to sequester significant amounts of carbon is being enhanced.” The Prime Minister mentioned Ethiopia’s effort to substitute bio-fuels for fossil fuels. He applauded the establishment of the National Climate Change Forum bringing all stakeholders together to chart Ethiopia’s course to mitigate and adapt to climate change. He welcomed the objective of building institutional capacity to continue to monitor developments, to collect necessary data and to continuously refine predictions. The Prime Minister promised the government’s support for such efforts.

In his remarks, Dr. Abera Deresa, State Minister of Rural Development and Agriculture and the Chairman of the National Climate Change Forum, appealed to all interested parties to join the Forum and contribute financial and intellectual resources. Dr Abera outlined the adverse effects of climate change, including temperature changes, drought, a rise in sea levels, floods and the greater frequency of extreme weather. In particular, he emphasized the challenges to the farming community. He spoke of the various initiatives taken by several institutions in relation to climate change in Ethiopia, but pointed out these were not always well-coordinated with the national climate change adaptation and mitigation policy. In his keynote speech, Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Director-General of the Environment Protection Authority, stressed the profound challenge of climate change to Ethiopia’s environment, suggesting ways to help future generations survive the intensification of these changes. A number of presentations were made on climate change and Ethiopian agriculture and climate change in relation to water resources, as well as on biodiversity, and the energy sector and gender. Discussions were lively, and the conference concluded its deliberations by highlighting the way forward to mitigate and adapt to climate change in Ethiopia and identifying what the respective contributions of the Ethiopian Government, of donors, of the international community and of the general public should be.