Why African Countries Are Boycotting Climate Change Talks

New talks about how to cut back on global carbon emissions to ease the affect of climate change have broken down once again because many African nations are arguing that rich countries are not doing their fair share to cut emissions. These African nations point to the Kyoto Protocol, which is not being strongly followed, and say that countries like Japan Germany, and Great Britain should have to cut their emissions by 40% instead of the 15% in the protocol. It would appear that these African nations do have a point because richer nations appear to be using delaying tactics rather than saying how they can truly cut their emissions. These African nations are pushing for the industrial world to cut its emissions now because these countries realize that Africa has the most to loose from global climate change. Africa is vulnerable to climate change because it contains vast arid areas, and also it poor population relies on subsistence farming, which could be disturbed greatly by climate change. Africa has already experienced some of the world's highest warming trends which has caused large numbers of people to have to move to try and find new lands so that the can farm. These warming trends have also caused conflicts in Africa as well. The conflict in Darfur revolves around nomads and farmers fighting over dwindling water supplies. These African nations do realize that addressing climate change requires that both developed and developing nations do their parts to cut emissions by not producing energy from dirty fuels, but instead using clean fuel sources like wind and solar. However, with this in mind the African nations do have a point that richer nations have been producing greenhouse gases for decades when the developing world was not. African nations also have a good point that richer nations have the resources to make this change less harmful to their economies, while many African nations do not. This is why many African nations believe that richer nations must bear a greater burden for switching to cleaner forms of energy. Hopefully these African nations and the developed world can put their differences aside, so that they can cut carbon emissions for the betterment of the entire world.

By: William Miller
Source: Christian Science Monitor