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East African
nations call for emission
reduction
By
Wolfgang H. Thome
 The
African continent has the least resources
available to dedicate towards fighting
global warming. Yet, corporate entities
feel no shame in dumping such "expired"
equipment in the continent. Faced with the
sharp end of climate change, through
draughts and floods in alternating
seasons, the East African governments have
appealed to the main polluting countries
to reduce their carbon emissions. This
took place at the recent United Nations
conference on climate change in New York
at the UN Headquarters.
Africa is
thought to be most vulnerable to the
effects of global warming, through
measurable increases in average
temperatures over the past decades and a
distinct change in weather patterns. Yet,
the African continent has the least
resources available to dedicate towards
fighting global warming, while in any case
the key polluters have shown little
interest to enter into meaningful
agreements to fight the climate change the
caused over the past 50 years.
In fact
the United States, still the leading
consumer of energy on the globe, has
negated on the Kyoto agreement, while
India and China remain outside this
framework, and other key countries have
still failed to ratify this crucial
agreement and put in place action plans to
reduce carbon emissions across their
corporate world.
In acts of
sheer corporate irresponsibility, driven
in some cases by greed and in other cases
by lack of capital, lack of vision or
plainly ignorant management, new airline
upstarts in the region have proposed to
use nearly obsolete aircraft types which
are notorious over their noise and fume
emissions. This has led to the ban of such
aircraft in much of the developed world.
Yet, such corporate entities feel no shame
in dumping such "expired" equipment in
Africa, while on other platforms singing
the songs of conservation and best
corporate practice.
Aviation
regulators in Africa are, therefore,
called upon to live up to their own
responsibilities to reduce carbon
emissions by licensing only such compliant
aircraft, as used for instance within the
EU and other parts of the world, where
ageing aircraft are now banned from the
skies.
This is
all the more important in view of the
current International Civil Aviation
Organization assembly in Montreal, where
the impact of the aviation industry on
global warming is being taken most
seriously and targets have been set to
reduce emissions. The best way to achieve
this is of course the use of modern
aircraft and disallowing the use of old
jets.
Often
times the cost of new aircraft have been
cited as an excuse why African airlines
could not afford modern jets, but when
looking at companies like Kenya Airways,
Ethiopian Airlines, Royal Air Maroc Egypt
Air and the current fleet renewal of Air
Tanzania, there are enough examples to see
how African airlines have converted their
fleets to modern, state of the art
standards, and by doing so playing a
hugely important role in mitigating
climate change.
Stay tuned
for coverage of the impact of climate
change and what can be done to gradually
reverse those changes. Also expect
offenders to be named and shamed to remind
them sharply that the global conservation
and green communities will keep an eye on
their behavior and report it until they
change their attitudes and climate hostile
activities.
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