By Megan Rowling
BARCELONA – If your country were responsible for only 0.05 percent of the world’s climate-changing emissions, you might not think it worth making a plan to curb that pollution – especially when you still need to get electricity to much of your population.
But the Gambian government thinks otherwise. It is already working on its contribution to a new global deal to tackle climate change, due to be hammered out in Paris at the end of this year.
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all countries have been invited to submit an “intended nationally determined contribution” (INDC), setting out what they will do to combat global warming, in advance of December’s Paris climate talks.
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“We think that if even the smallest nation or the poorest country can develop an INDC, there should be no excuse from any country to say (they) cannot,” said Bubu Pateh Jallow, a former Gambian official who advises the government on climate change. “There is a moral obligation that we have to do this.”
With assistance from Germany and the UK-based Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), Gambia has held consultations with technical experts, as well as groups from bureaucrats to businesses to women in all its eight regions.
Initial results suggest Gambia could aim to cut emissions 25 to 30 percent by 2030 from 2000 levels, Jallow said.
Measures to get there include using solar and wind energy for rural electrification, reducing power loss during transmission, recovering gases from landfills, composting waste, and introducing agroforestry and better soil management.
So far, 37 countries – including the United States, Russia, Canada and European Union member states – have formally submitted their INDCs.
(Thomson Reuters Foundation)