Bonn, Germany
30 March 2009
IPACC delegates from Mali and Chad have come to Bonn to follow up on the UN’s climate negotations. Indigenous peoples from Africa are trying to make their voices heard in the difficult and cumbersome forum. IPACC’s main point is that adaptation is a major issue for Africa. Most of the discussions at the UNFCCC have been about mitigation, emissions and the role of carbon markets. While these talks drag on, Africans are experiencing increasingly extreme weather conditions, not only droughts, but heavy rainfalls, flooding and related problems of diseases, food insecurity, loss of livestock and homes.
The UN reached a serious deadlock in the Poznan Conference of Parties in December 2009. The Bonn meeting in March / April is an important chance to undo the deadlock and move forward to an agreement for the Copenhagen COP at the end of the year. At the heart of the deadlock is the resistance by countries of the South and China to the slow commitments by Western states to fund adaptation and mitigation, and help protect the most vulnerable countries from the effects of climate change.
IPACC is a partner organisation to SHALIN Finland.
