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COP27: “What vulnerable populations need is not an agenda, it is finances”
Eva Peace Mukyiranga, in the corridors of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, November 7, 2022. © Géraud Bosman-Delzons/RFI
Text by: Géraud Bosman-Delzons Follow
3 mins
Eva Peace Mukyiranga is a junior negotiator of the Framework Convention, this Rwandan has worked within the African delegation since then, as a finance specialist.
She also co-founded the Youth Coalition for Loss and Damage (LDYC), the damage caused by global warming.
We met her in Sharm el-Sheikh where she is taking part in COP27 as part of her delegation.
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From our special correspondent in Sharm el-Sheikh
RFI: “Loss and damage” has been included on the negotiating agenda for the first time. Is this a win for you?
Eva Peace Mukyiranga
:
This is a first small step in the right direction from the first day of the COP.
It's been since 1991 that vulnerable countries have been claiming "loss and damage", so it's nice.
But it's just a diary, there's a long way to go.
We must now succeed in obtaining an agreement on a financial mechanism for loss and damage.
What is needed for vulnerable populations is not an agenda, it is finances.
They exist for mitigation, for adaptation, but not for loss and damage.
People are losing their homes, their schools, their lives to the floods.
It's a whole life that changes overnight, and for now, there is no way to help them rebuild and cope with these disasters, as in Nigeria.
This is when people need money and this is where loss and damage comes in.
We therefore hope for a mechanism for “loss and damage” at this COP.
Does Rwanda experience extreme events like these?
In Rwanda, it is rather drought.
This affects the changing of the seasons.
The length of the rainy seasons, which is no longer as regular, does not produce the harvests that were hoped for.
This causes a loss of income.
It affects farmers, who are the means of survival for the majority of the population.
My sister and my parents are vegetable farmers.
I was worried just before coming if they were going to be able to plant.
What is your background and what is your role within the delegation?
I was born in Kigali, I studied business administration.
I was not very aware of climate change.
Since 2018, I have been involved in a local NGO, the Green Protectors, where I help with the accounting.
But it allowed me to go to COP24.
It was a real jungle for me!
I was planning to continue my studies in finance and I discovered that there were links between economic development and climate change.
If we don't take it into account, there will be no sustainable development.
I am part of the Youth Coalition for Loss and Damage, which brings together young people from all over the world, many from Africa.
Its objective is to promote youth on this issue, to advocate, etc.
I am a member of the Rwandan delegation to this COP, with more than ten other young negotiators, out of about 70 people.
I am in training, but I can also speak.
The usefulness of COPs is often questioned. What do you think ?
They are useful.
If it hadn't been for this pressure on developed countries to take positions on the issue of loss and damage, we would never have had an agenda.
And I think young people played a big role in making that happen.
They were very mobilized at COP26, which ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront of the discussions.
I believe you can turn talk into action, whether as a negotiator or an activist.
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Africa
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finance