Ethiopian Premier Calls for Speeding Up Climate Change Negotiations

Doha, December 04 (QNA) - Ethiopia's Prime Minister Haile Mariam Desalegne has called for speeding the ongoing negotiations on the Climate Change convention and not to prolong them indefinitely. The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, in a speech today at the opening session of the high-level meetings of 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-18) being held in Doha, urged the delegations participating in the conference to work in a spirit of harmony and effectiveness to formulate an agreement leading to tangible results with regard to the climate change phenomenon. He called for change of relationship between man and nature in terms of preservation and maintenance by reducing the negative effects of human intervention. The Ethiopian Premier stressed that the Doha conference puts States before the joint responsibility to maintain the momentum of the work that had been achieved last year in Durban and move forward with positive steps to address the issue of the implementation of the Climate Convention. "The prolonged negotiations can exacerbate the pain and suffering of millions of people in developing countries, especially in Africa threatened by climate change in their livelihoods" , he noted adding that " the Doha deliberations must move away from endless negotiations in order to reach agreements to be materialized into concrete actions." The Ethiopian Premier said that the African countries, including Ethiopia are now in Doha for a constructive contribution to achieving positive results at the conference. He spoke in this regard his country's efforts to reduce emissions, pointing out that Ethiopia, which produces 1.8 metric tons of emissions per capita per year was working on to become a non-existent carbon emissions by the year 2025. He added that his country took the initiative to take positive steps to reduce emissions by adopting green development system, expressing hope that the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol would start by the beginning of next year and that the developed countries would fulfill their commitments to meet the obligations to reduce emissions rate. The Prime Minister of Ethiopia concluded by saying: "We the Africans call on all parties to respect the balanced deal, which was held in Durban, and we urge the parties to have an ambitious waiting period to be legally binding and also to commit to comprehensive investigation to achieve results in the context of the Bali Action Plan to ensure sustainable, effective and complete implementation of our agreements.", he said. (QNA)