UN-backed gathering aims to identify climate change adaptation actions

11 October 2010 – Hundreds of people have gathered at a United Nations-backed meeting in Addis Ababa to identify actions that will promote sustainable development in Africa in the face of climate change.

The five-day gathering, which kicked off in the Ethiopian capital yesterday, will focus on strategies to adapt to global warming.

Africa contributes less than 4 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions, but the continent’s countries are among the most vulnerable to climate change in the world, according to Josue Dione, Director of the Food Security and Sustainable Development Division of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

He pointed to Gambia, whose Government has spent millions of dollars in recent years to build back beaches that had been washed away to support the country’s tourism industry.