29 October 2009
AFRICAN parliamentarians meeting at the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) in Johannesburg, South Africa, have resolved to push for the full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol at the forthcoming Copenhagen conference in Denmark this December.
"Africa is going to Copenhagen with one voice, and that voice is that the Kyoto Protocol must not die. There's no other position apart from this position," said PAP president, Moussa Idriss Ndele.
"We know that some of the NGOs and Western governments are going to try and buy our parliamentarians so that we can join them in calling for the killing of the Kyoto Protocol, but Africa's position is that the Protocol must live."
The Kyoto Protocol, which came into force in 2005, though initially adopted in 1997, is an international agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and seeks to address the problem of global warming.
By 2005, more than 140 countries had ratified it, including major industrialised countries - except the United States of America, Australia and Monaco - despite the USA being repeatedly accused of contributing up to a quarter of the emissions that have been blamed for global warming.
Two of the world's fastest growing polluters, India and China, have since signed the protocol.
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