Minister appeals to developed countries on technology transfer

Minister appeals to developed countries on technology transfer
Written by Chris Ochayi
Tuesday, 30 October 2007

ABUJA—Minister of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, Mrs. Halima Alao has pleaded with the industrialized nations to assist developing countries with cheap technology transfer and provision of adequate financial support that would enable them to stem the aftermath of climate change.



The Minister who stated this at the opening of a three-day preparatory meeting of the “African Group Negotiators in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP) yesterday in Abuja, pointed that Africa nations are most vulnerable and of least capacity to combat the negative impacts of climate changes.

She said, there is need for enhanced human, institutional and systemic capacity building initiatives from developed countries.
According to her, there is need for increased level of Least Developed Country Fund (LDCF) as well as deployment and fostering the use of sustainable, less carbon intensive, cheap-energy and climate friendly technologies are important from mitigation and adaptation view points”.

She added that Africa remains the least to benefit from this arrangement due to lack of capacity to negotiate within the larger group our needs to face the challenges of global warming and climate change.

“African countries must effectively address the challenges posed by the adverse impacts of climate change and climate variability on our national development efforts as well as provision of adequate and predictable financial and technical assistance to assist our perspective countries to effectively implement adaptation and mitigation projects consistent with national sustainable development priorities”.

“Our ability to implement climate change activities to enhance our sustainable development largely depends on availability and access to fund and technology for the implementation of climate change activities”.

The Minister stressed further that provision of funding and transfer of technology would not only enable the continent to attain Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but enhance efforts towards the implementation of the Convention and the Protocol.

Article taken from the online version of Vanguard newspaper.