Senegal’s President Macky Sall has called for international solidarity to cope with the effects of climate change.
“Either we save the planet, or it disappears with us (because) everything has been said about the state of climate emergency that brings us here,” Sall said Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt where the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) opened the day before.
“More than ever, we must act to save the planet by implementing the Paris Climate Agreement,” he insisted, while inviting those who pollute the most to pay more “to help bring the planet out of its state of climate emergency.” For the current president of the African Union, time has come to move from promises to action to save the planet.
To do this, “the countries that have been responsible for global warming for more than a century must realise that they must also make their contribution so that the whole planet does not follow the same path. This would push us towards the certain destruction of the planet,” he said.
He warned that if the money is not there, we will resort to the same energy sources for Africa’s development aspirations. We have more than 600 million Africans who still do not have access to electricity. Go and tell these people: ‘wait until the energy transition is done’.
Denouncing the failure of developed countries to meet their commitments to underdeveloped countries, the Senegalese leader said that “the time has come to put everyone’s responsibility on the table. Either we save the planet or it disappears with us.”
“We are ready to work with all partners so that the Sharm el-Sheikh COP is not just another statement on climate change, but another action in favour of the climate in the interest of current and future generations,” the Senegalese leader said.
At a press briefing on November 3 at UN headquarters in New York, Secretary-General António Guterres called on countries to rebuild trust between North and South at COP27 to avoid a climate catastrophe.
This should include fulfilling the commitment made by developed countries at COP15 in 2009 in Denmark to pay $100 billion per year to so-called developing countries by 2020. Called the “Green Climate Fund,” it should finance projects to combat global warming and adaptation.
But according to Macky Sall, the first 100 billion has still not been reached.
ARD/te/lb/abj/APA