Forum calls for global climate action

An adaptation strategy to control natural disasters was unanimously recommended by delegates at the just concluded Africa Climate Change forum which was held at Kigali Serena Hotel.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

An adaptation strategy to control natural disasters was unanimously recommended by delegates at the just concluded Africa Climate Change forum which was held at Kigali Serena Hotel.

Delegates from both developing and developed countries agreed Thursday to enforce all necessary mechanisms to take-up the said strategy to revive climate change control.

However, procedures regarding how the proposed action will be universally executed were not clearly defined as some countries do not fully admit climate change impacts.

They only recommended adaptation strategy as best measures to control the impacts, but how to devise its implementation remained an open subject for further global talks.

Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, urged African countries to capitalise on carbon credit aid given to them to devise the needed adaptation strategy.

Natural Resource Minister, Stanislas Kamanzi, who delivered the forum’s closing remarks of Prime Minster Bernard Makuza, called for harmonised actions among African countries.

Involving other institutions especially those in charge of financial control was called for to enable the adaptation strategy to succeed in the fight against climate change.

The two-day conference was concluded with field visits to the ecologically revitalised areas, and Nyamata Genocide Memorial Site in Bugesera District, Eastern Province.

According to Kamanzi, the visit aimed at providing delegates with first hand information on the scars of Genocide to both human rights and the environment.

"Am glad to comeback and see this important memorial site and such progress in Rwanda,” wrote Robinson in the memorial site’s Visitors’ book.

At Lake Kidogo in Mayange Sector, they were briefed on how the restoration of human rights has guaranteed the revitalisation of the earlier lost greenbelt of the area.   

Ends