Zambian Climate Change Organizations Not Happy with COP 17 Outcome

A network of organizations involved in climate change issues in Zambia have expressed concerns over the outcome of the Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, saying it did not come up with "concrete" decisions to reduce carbon emissions, a senior official said here on Thursday.

The Zambia Climate Change Network (ZCCN) is of the view that the decisions that came out of the climate change talks did not give any hope of tackling one of the world's biggest problems.

"The COP 17 meeting came out with about 17 decisions but we are not happy with the outcome because it did not deal with the real problems," the organization's chairperson Noah Zimba told Xinhua.

He said the organization is not happy with the outcome because the decisions agreed upon were based on "compromise" and did not decisively deal with how countries will cut down on carbon emissions. "It did not come out with binding resolutions on tackling carbon emissions," he added.

The official said climate change is a huge problem which should not be ignored because the consequences will be "catastrophic" if decisive actions are not taken now.

While acknowledging that Africa will face severe consequences of climate change, the official said there is need to build capacities in African nations so that they can come up with adaptation and mitigation mechanisms.

The official said African governments needed to emulate developed nations and increase funding to environmental issues so that issues of climate change can be tackled effectively.