Climate change dominates G77+ China Kampala meeting
The Group of 77 (G77) and China lead negotiators at Speke Resort in Munyonyo during a 3-day meeting that started on October 14, 2024 in Kampala, Uganda. PHOTO/COURTESY
What you need to know:
- COP29 will be held in Baku between November 11-22 with the annual UN climate change conference expected to draw sharp focus on climate funding to tame climate change dangers.
The Group of 77 (G77) and China lead negotiators are currently holding discussions in Kampala to discuss strategies around mitigating the ongoing global climate change crisis that is also affecting the host nation, Uganda.
Climate change remains a global concern- specifically its likely negative impacts on the future.
On October 14, climate funding negotiators commenced a 3-day meeting supported by the International Organisation on Migration (IOM) in Uganda’s capital.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the discussions, Uganda’s permanent representative to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, acknowledged that financing remains a major topic following the 2015 Paris agreement.
“The Paris agreement says that developed countries have a responsibility to provide finance and we hope that this financing will be of scale…trillions of dollars, and quality, to address the climate change crisis,” Ambassador Ayebare said.
A legally binding international treaty on climate change, the Paris agreement was adopted in the French capital by 196 parties of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) on December 12, 2015. It came into force on November 4, 2016.
Ayebare called upon funders not to offer loans but grants.
“You do not want to get money for climate change that will make developing countries go into debt. We want debt-free funding that is of quality,” he urged, speaking barely a month to the next major UN climate gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan
“Yes, financing is always an issue because those ones who are supposed to pay do not want to pay but as developing countries, we are the majority. The group of G-77 and China is 134 and therefore have to make sure they stick to their obligation which is to pay up. And now, we have an opportunity in Baku because this is where we are going to agree upon the new quantified goal on finance (during COP29),” Ayebare added.
Ugnda's state minister for environment Beatrice Anywar, in her speech read by Ayebare, decried climate change impacts burdening all developing countries, particularly the poorest.
IOM regional director for East, Horn and Southern Africa Frantz Celestin also observed that climate change is a threat multiplier where tension and insecurity already exists.
“I am sure the same terrible impacts are occurring in all the countries that G77 & China represent. This means that we must triple our efforts to work together collaboratively to find concrete solutions today,” Celestin said.
COP29 will be held in Baku between November 11-22 with the annual UN climate change conference expected to draw sharp focus on climate funding to tame climate change dangers.
