Remarks by His Excellency Hon. William Samoei Ruto, PHD., C.G.H., President of the Republic of Kenya and Commander-in-chief of the Defence Forces, on Behalf of the African Group and Kenya at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
We come together for the 27th annual climate meeting, 30 years after the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, 25 years since we adopted the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and 7 years following yet another historic milestone: the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015.
When the Convention was adopted in 1992, global emissions were approximately 27 gigatons annually. This has risen to about 40 gigatons, while carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere has also steadily increased. For the past eight consecutive years, documented by the U.N to be the hottest years in recorded history, each new year has been hotter than the previous year.
The whole world is reeling from the staggering impact of climate change. The spread, scale and frequency of disasters like hurricanes, typhoons, wild fires and heat waves, melting sea ice and glaciers, droughts and desertification, floods and rising sea levels, in numerous regions of all continents, indicate that humanity is confronting unprecedented devastation on a global scale.
The State of Climate in Africa report lays it bare. High water stress is estimated to affect about 250 million people in Africa and is expected to displace up to 700 million people by 2030. In the past 50 years, drought- related hazards have claimed the lives of over half a million people and led to economic losses of over 70 billion USD in the region. .More than 1 000 flood-related disasters were reported involving more than 20,000 deaths in Africa alone over this period. It is estimated that by 2050, climate impacts could cost African nations USD 50 billion annually.
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