President of the United States Joe Biden has said that the country will commit the sum of $150 million dollars to accelerate climate adaptation initiatives in Africa.
Biden, who made this known on Friday while delivering a national statement at the ongoing COP27 in Egypt, said African cities and communities hardest hit by the climate crisis did not have the resources to adapt.
He said his administration had doubled its adaptation pledge, adding that if countries could finance coal in developing countries, they could also finance clean energy in those countries.
Biden further stated that the US would ensure that every dollar delivered went into unlocking larger pools of financing and the trillions in private investment that is needed.
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“So many disasters, climate crisis, the city and hardest hit countries and communities that have the fewest resources to respond and to recover,” Biden was quoted as saying. “That’s why last year I committed to working with our congress to quadruple US support to climate finance and provide $11 billion annually by 2024, including $3 billion for adaptation,”.
Speaking further, he said, “today, as a down payment, we’re announcing more than $150 million in initiatives that will specifically support and prepare adaptation efforts throughout Africa, including adaptation and African efforts that Egypt and the United States launched together in June”.
According to him, the funding includes support for expanding early warning systems to help recover Africa, broadening access to climate finance, providing disaster risk protection, strengthening food security, mobilising the private sector, and supporting new training centres in Egypt to accelerate adaptation across the continent.”
Biden also said that the climate crisis is about human, economic, environmental and national security as well as life on the planet, citing the impacts of climate change across the world.
He said that the time had come for world leaders to see it as a mission to avert climate catastrophe and ensure a new clean energy economy for the present and the future.
“According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the past eight years have been the warmest on record,”he said. “The United States is seeing a historic drought. wildfires in the west, food insecurity, and hunger following four years of intense drought in the Horn of Africa,”.
He explained that the Nigeria flooding has recently killed 600 people and 1.3 million more are displaced, adding that seasonal livestock migration routes have been used for hundreds of years and are being altered, increasing the risk of conflict between herders and local farming communities.
“Our investments in technology, from electric batteries to hydrogen are going to spark a cycle of innovation that will reduce the cost and improve the performance of clean energy technology that will be available to nations worldwide, not just the United
Story was adapted from the Cable.
