Mithika: COVID-19 and Climate Change offer the world new dawn of working together

 The twin emergencies, COVID-19 pandemic and climate change offer the global communities a new dawn of working together, Mithika Mwenda, the executive director of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance has said.

Speaking at the Global People Assembly holding in New York in the sidelines of the ongoing 75^th UN General Assembly, Mithika said in this interconnected world, the twin emergencies has taught us that our fates are tied together.

“From hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 deaths, to the major floods, storms and wildfires that have wrecked communities in Europe, and America in this past few months, we can no longer frame global problems as that of the poor or for the rich, the powerful or for the powerless. We are in the same boat. We will sink together unless we work together to avoid the worst case scenarios,” he said.

The Assembly and the UN General Assembly hold against the background of the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic which continues to cause unimaginable pain to communities across Africa and the world.

Mithika pointed out that those particularly hid hard are the poor people already in deep poverty. “The poor have lost their sources of livelihoods and jobs as nations shut their borders, not only restricting travel but also shutting off markets,” he noted.

He noted that the climate crisis which has gone unresolved for too long has made things more painful adding that from Madagascar to Kenya, and the Sahel region of Africa, severe drought has caused famine and deaths to children. Yet, he wondered why the existing gaping inequalities and the lack of global solidarity?

Mithika said the trillions of dollars that rich countries successfully raised within few months to tackle COVID-19 was unbelievable given that for years climate justice defenders have called out without success for urgent response to climate change.

“There is only one possible explanation to this. Climate change impacts primarily poor countries, poor communities and the poor people.  While COVID-19 hit the wealth communities and rich countries. Thus the indifference to the suffering in the global south continues to be evident even in the unequal access to badly needed COVID-19 vaccines in the poor countries, particularly in Africa,” he said.

He equally noted despite accumulation of global wealth in the hands a few nations this century; the world is ill-prepared to deal with disruptions beyond certain threshold.

To listen to the address, click here