CLIIMATE CHANGE EQUITY: Africans emit the least

In terms of totals, small african countries - Rwanda and Burundi - emit the least in the world and in terms of per capita, the whole continent is below the global average and according to IIED, below the natural sink capacity level. Time to echo the HDR findings "'The world's poorest people are on the frontline. They stand most directly in harm's way - and they have the least resources to cope. This first catastrophe is not a distant future scenario. It is unfolding today, slowing progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and deepening inequalities within and across countries."


Source:The New Times (Rwanda), agrifoodstandards.net and IIED .... by C. Kazooba, S. Mutesi and IIED [Muyeye Chambwera et al]

Rwanda and Burundi are among countries with least carbon emissions in the world.
Rwanda is ranked at 161 emitting about 600,000 tonnes of carbon gasses that cause climate change whereas Burundi is positioned at 167 emitting about 200,000 tonnes in 2004 out of the 177 countries surveyed, according to the 2007/2008 UNDP's Human Development Report released in Kampala yesterday.
Rwanda, which comes after Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, in 2004, signed the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, both of which limit a country's emission of Carbondioxide.
The United Nations Development Programme report titled: 'Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World', warns that the recent devastating climate change would severely affect the world's poorest.
'The world's poorest people are on the frontline. They stand most directly in harm's way - and they have the least resources to cope. This first catastrophe is not a distant future scenario. It is unfolding today, slowing progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and deepening inequalities within and across countries.
Left unattended, it will lead to human development reversals throughout the 21st century,' the report reveals.
It adds that climate change through its impact on ecology, rainfall, temperature and weather systems, global warming will directly affect all countries.
'However, some countries and people are more vulnerable than others. In the long-term, the whole of humanity faces risks but more immediately, the risks and vulnerabilities are skewed towards the world's poorest people,' it said.
The world's temperature is reported to have grown by around 0.7 degrees centigrade since the advent of the industrial era, according to the research.
'The trend is accelerating at average global mean temperature is rising at 0.2 degrees centigrade every decade.'