KIGALI - Rwanda is among the countries that have associated with the Copenhagen Accord to fight climate change, two months after it was agreed at a UN summit last year.

This was revealed yesterday by the Minister of Environment and Lands, Stanislas Kamanzi.

According to the Minister, the Accord which calls upon the world community to take action on the rise in average of global temperatures is a good initiative that seeks to solve a number of issues regarding climate change.

"After it was discussed last year, nations were left with a choice of whether to associate with it or not,” Kamanzi said.

"Although this accord does not clearly specify how countries, especially the highly industrial ones, will participate in reducing emissions, Rwanda associates with this measure that seeks to regulate temperatures to within 2 degrees centigrade.”

Global media reports show that by yesterday, 100 nations had signed up for the climate deal however China, India and Russia, the largest greenhouse gas emitters, are yet to make clear if they fully endorse the deal.

Other industrialized countries that have expressed willingness to be associated with the accord by citing their emissions cut targets by 2020 include, the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and the European Union, among others.

Kamanzi added that Rwanda’s interest to be associated with this deal does not necessarily stipulate target emission reduction rates by 2020 because the country is among those with very low pollution.

"Our ambition is to be a carbon-free country. This is not very easy to achieve since it takes a long process, but certainly we are on the road to attain this. It involves a lot, including cutting our power generation rate,” he noted.

"Rwanda’s economy is also dependent on fossil fuels and eliminating this is quite impossible. The good news is that we still emit below the limit, hence our country does not pollute the atmosphere like heavily industrialized nations do.”

Ends