Tadesse Dadi, a programme support adviser for Tearfund in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said that the activities of Western countries were the principle cause of many of the daily struggles for Ethiopians, including the fight against malaria, find clean drinking water and grow crops and rear livestock.
“Many of the rural Ethiopians I meet do not directly associate the worst effects of climate change with human activities in richer countries,” he said in a special article written for the BBC’s Viewpoint.
“Yet it is precisely those Western activities which are principally behind the climate change they now experience in their daily lives.”
These daily problems have been compounded by the terrible drought that has devastated large parts of Somalia, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.
Mr Dadi urged governments to follow up international treaties by sustaining their commitment to the process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.Many of the rural Ethiopians I meet do not directly associate the worst effects of climate change with human activities in richer countries. Yet it is precisely those Western activities which are principally behind the climate change they now experience in their daily lives.
Tadesse Dadi, Tearfund programme support adviser, Ethiopia
Mr Mengesha, an 82-year-old farmer in northern Ethiopia, is just one of many people encountered by Dadi in Ethiopia struggling to produce sufficient crops amid erratic rainfall, while Mrs Suufee, a 62-year-old widow, has seen her sorghum crop fail two years out of five as a result of poor rains.
“In a nutshell, Western lifestyles are the principal cause of climate change; to Western societies falls the responsibility of supporting people like Mrs Suufee and Mr Mengesha as they struggle against its impacts,” he said.
