UNEP Deputy Ibrahim Thiaw on Poverty Eradication & Climate Change

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UNEP’s Deputy Executive Director Ibrahim Thiaw of Mauritania spoke at EU Development Days 2013 in a session organised by DG Climate Action entitled “Poverty Eradication and Climate Change: Friends or Foes?” on 27 November 2013 in Brussels. EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard began by stating that it seems impossible to meet the proposed new overarching global development goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 without genuinely addressing climate change, and vice versa – something echoed by fellow panellists from France as well as UN-Habitat and UNDP-GEF and a youth representative. 

 Mr Thiaw emphasised the urgency of addressing climate change: since many reports now say that we could potentially exceed the 2-degree target, the urgency to act is even greater. He went on to illustrate the connection between poverty and the environment, directly speaking to the situation in the Sahel where conflict and poverty, he said, has grown out of competition for natural resources. Competition for natural resources, as Thiaw explained, is the root cause of the situation in Mali. Climate change exacerbates such crises.

Find out more about the event and speakers here