ETHIOPIAN Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has demanded that the rich world compensate Africa for global warming and said pollution in the northern hemisphere may have caused his country's ruinous 1980s famines.
A United Nations (UN) summit scheduled for December in Copenhagen will try to reach global agreement on how to tackle climate change and come up with a post-Kyoto protocol to curb emissions.
"Africa should demand compensation at the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations," Reuters quoted Zenawi, one of Africa's most outspoken leaders on global issues, as saying.
"(There are) certain theories that the droughts of the 1980s in much of the Sahel, including in Ethiopia, were to some extent due to pollution in the northern countries," added the former rebel, who represented Africa at this year's G20 summit.
A study commissioned by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum last month said poor countries bear more than nine-tenths of the human and economic burden of climate change. Yet the 50 poorest countries contribute less than one per cent of carbon emissions heating "Africa is going to be very significantly affected," said Zenawi. "Some parts of the continent may become uninhabitable. Therefore, those that did the damage have to pay."
"Any agreement in Copenhagen which does not include substantial compensation for Africa would be illegitimate," Zenawi added. "I hope that it won't come to lawsuits."
The Ethiopian leader recently warned that the global crisis would ruin African economies over the next decade unless rich countries stopped attaching conditions for aid and allowed the world's poorest continent to formulate its own economic policies.
Zenawi, who represented Africa at April's G-20 meeting of rich nations, spoke at a UN meeting to discuss how Africa could continue to develop during the crisis.
The Ethiopian premier said reduced growth, low commodity prices and high oil prices were likely to affect Africa for about 10 years and the west needed to give African nations the ability to devise their own policies to lessen the impact of these issues.
"I do not know whether I need to explain why sovereign African nations should plead to be given policy space," said Zenawi. "The simple answer is that they are not so sovereign when it comes to economic policy making."
The Ethiopian leader asked rich countries to stop attaching economic policy conditions to foreign aid, which he said the hungry continent was dependent on.
"(African) countries are faced with a very well-coordinated and solid policy orthodoxy (from donors)," he said. "They either adhere to it and get the money, or chart their own course and face the risk of the drying up of external assistance."
The continent was thought to be largely insulated against the worst effects of the global downturn but has recently seen healthy growth projections slashed as exports have fallen and foreign aid, investment and remittances have dried up.
Africa's largely agricultural exports have been hit hard by the crisis and Zenawi said the sector needs reform to maximize profits.
"We are too dependent on commodity exports," he said, calling for more industrialisation and agricultural processing plants for the continent.
"Agriculture, which is the source of livelihood for the vast majority of Africa, has not been transformed and is still the weakest link in our economic chain."
The Ethiopian leader blamed the developed world for global warming, which he also said would have a devastating impact on Africa, and said rich nations should financially compensate Africa for the effects of global warming.
"I think the international community could and should provide adequate policy space, live up to its commitments of development assistance, limit global warming and pay compensation for the unavoidable damage caused by it," he said.
"If no such assistance is forthcoming, then I am afraid the prospects for many countries in Africa are likely to be very dire indeed," said Zenawi.
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