Tiempo Climate Newswatch

"Southwestern Uganda, where temperatures have risen by 0.3 degrees [Celsius] in a decade, is one of the hardest-hit areas in terms of disease outbreaks, especially malaria," reports Philip Gwage of the Ministry of Water and Environment. According to the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) for Uganda, a two-degree Celsius rise in temperature could see parts of the country losing cash crops, including coffee. Cassava and soya would be affected by new pests, despite being staple crops.

"Drought is the single most important and widespread disaster in Uganda," the NAPA report concludes. "It is increasing in frequency and severity, particularly in the semi-arid areas of the cattle corridor. The rural poor, whose livelihoods are dependent on natural resources, are most affected." "Climate change threatens efforts geared towards poverty reduction in an agricultural country like Uganda [where] the majority are peasant farmers relying on rainfall to produce," commented Gorretie Nabanoga of Makerere University in Kampala. "This trend threatens to undo decades of development," she continued, threatening to frustrate poverty eradication programmes and the Millennium Development Goals.

A binding climate change policy that will cap South African greenhouse gas emissions by 2020-2025 will be in place within three years, according to Marthinus van Schalkwyk, minister of environmental affairs and tourism. "If we continue to grow without a carbon constraint, we face the threat of border tax adjustments or trade sanctions from key trading partners and the destruction of thousands of jobs in the high emitting trade exposed sectors," he said at the Climate Change Summit 2009.

"Acting now on climate change presents the best possibility to overcome the challenges of the global economic crisis - through investment in pro-poor job creating and sustainable green growth. If the world community does not take decisive action soon, it is the poorest that will be hardest hit," Kgalema Motlanthe, South African president, told the summit. The bulk of South African emissions are the responsibility of state-owned utility Eskom, which provides most of the country's electricity, 90 per cent from coal, and petrochemical group Sasol, whose Secunda coal-to-liquids plant has been accused of being the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide on the planet. "The government has to put pressure and hold these companies accountable," said Ferrial Adam, commentator and Earthlife researcher.

A global protest against British government plans to build new coal-fired power stations has been launched. Campaigners from more than 40 developing countries have written to energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband, describing the government as a "climate criminal." "Coal power is the most climate-polluting way to generate electricity," the letter says. "New coal power stations in the United Kingdom will exacerbate the impacts of climate change on impoverished communities in the south."

The group is opposing plans to build new power stations without carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities. It also has criticized proposals to offset the carbon generated through the Clean Development Mechanism, which, it says, has "continuously had negative impacts on communities in the global south while failing to cut emissions." Miliband is understood to have called for a review of the plans for new coal-fired power stations. The Climate Change Committee recently called for all coal plants to have CCS technology by the year 2025 to ensure the United Kingdom reaches its target of an 80 per cent cut in emissions by 2050.