SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and a big thank you, Hayde, to you for keeping us moving, and I will try to stay on your good side. (Laughter.) But it’s an honor to be joined at this table by so many leaders, so many colleagues – among other, President Tshisekedi – it’s very good to be with you – President Ramkalawan, President Hichilema, President Buhari, President Obiang, President Bongo Ondimba – thank you, thank you, thank you for your partnership, for your partnership to help preserve our planet.
We’re also joined today by members of Congress, members of the Biden Cabinet – I think Congressman Meeks is about to join us if he’s not already here – we have representatives from multilateral organizations, philanthropies, private sector leaders, activists, academics, youth leaders. To each and every one of you, welcome.
The diversity of this group is heartening – a statement not merely of how we’re all affected by the climate crisis, but how committed we all are to working together to address it.
Last month many of us were in Egypt for COP27. An African COP was a recognition that, as the urgency of the climate crisis grows, our focus must increasingly be on Africa.
As we know, 17 of the world’s 20 most climate vulnerable countries are on the African continent.
Four straight years of drought in the Horn of Africa have left more than 18 million people facing severe hunger.
Communities across the continent are feeling the impact of a changing climate. Severe storms have battered southern Africa; surging temperatures kindle wildfires in northern Africa; rising seas threaten lives and livelihoods on island nations, while extreme weather events in central Africa worsen already-dire food crises and fuel tensions that feed and fuel violent conflict.
We know that African nations have contributed relatively little to this crisis but are disproportionally harmed by it. It’s both unfair and unrealistic to ask them to turn their backs on economic development and opportunity in the name of a clean energy transition, to ask them in effect to forego what many of us have done in the past in developing our countries and our economies.
And so we believe that the best way – indeed, the just way – to address the climate crisis in Africa is to work together.
Earlier this year, in South Africa, I had an opportunity to set out President Biden’s new Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa. It’s based on a simple idea: we can’t achieve any of our shared priorities – tackle any of our biggest challenges – unless we do it together as equal partners.
That’s true of every major issue we face today, and it’s particularly true of climate change. So here’s how we’re addressing this crisis together.
First, we are partnering to conserve ecosystems. Africa is home to some of the world’s most precious ecosystems, which are critical for combating climate change. This summer I visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, where forests absorb more carbon than is emitted by the entire continent of Africa. The Congo Basin is also a place of tremendous biodiversity, a lifeforce for agriculture across the region.
To support the sustainable management of the Congo Basin rainforest, we’ve invested over $600 million in the Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, which brings together the U.S. Government and African and U.S. NGOs.
And we’re building new coalitions between African governments, the private sector, civil society to protect other vital ecosystems across the continent.
Oceans are also a key part of this fight. That’s why we’ve launched the Ocean Conservation Pledge to encourage countries to commit to protect at least 30 percent of their ocean waters by the year 2030.
Second, we’re partnering to make commitments and communities more resilient in the face of climate change. The President’s Emergency Plan for…
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