Article from US Embassy, Ethiopia
His Excellency Belete Tafere, Minister of Environment and Forest, and Patricia M. Haslach, U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, signing joint Statement of Support for the implementation of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, July 9, 2015 – Today, the United States joins Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in affirming its support for the implementation of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy. In joining the partnership, initially announced at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of the Parties in Lima, Peru in 2014, the United States formally asserts how it will contribute towards the achievement of Ethiopia’s aspirations to become a carbon-neutral, middle-income economy by 2025.
Despite being one of the world’s poorest countries, Ethiopia has made significant contributions to catalyze a global solution to climate change. At home, Ethiopia has developed its CRGE strategy, an economy-wide plan to guide low-emissions development over the next ten years, which is being integrated into its next five year Growth and Transformation Plan. Abroad, Ethiopia is the first “Least Developed Country” to release its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, which is a remarkable accomplishment that highlights this country’s global leadership on both climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Since 2010, the United States has been a committed partner to Ethiopia in implementing the CRGE. The US has provided nearly $100 million in Ethiopia through its Feed the Future and Global Climate Change Initiatives to improve pastoralist resiliency, to enhance adaptive capacity of food insecure households through the Productive Safety Net Program, and to promote climate adaptation practices and technologies. To leverage private sector knowhow, the United States, together with others, including U.S. companies, launched a new public-private partnership to provide climate data and other services in Ethiopia to enhance resiliency and adaptation measures throughout the country. The United States is also supporting the development of and access to renewable energy, particularly through the Power Africa Initiative, as well as providing capacity-building assistance to implement CRGE through the Enhancing Capacity for Low Emissions Development Strategies (EC-LEDS) activity.
“Today’s signing ceremony is an excellent way to reaffirm our commitment to combatting global climate change and to supporting Ethiopia in its extraordinary efforts to address this challenge at home,” says the United States Ambassador to Ethiopia, Patricia Haslach.
“Country partnerships such as this add momentum on the road to reaching an ambitious and inclusive climate change agreement in Paris later this year, and serve as an important building block to greater global cooperation to solve the climate crisis,” Haslach says.
