Harsh Truths to the West from Gabon

The world will only take meaningful action on the climate crisis once people in rich countries start dying in greater numbers from its effects, Gabon’s environment minister has said, while warning that broken promises on billions of dollars of adaptation finance have left a “sense of betrayal” before Cop27. Lee White said governments were not yet behaving as if global heating was a crisis, and he feared for the future he was leaving to his children. Gabon, one of the most forested nations and home to more than half of the remaining critically endangered African forest elephants, is holding one of the largest ever sales of carbon credits, generated by protecting its portion of the Congo basin rainforest, the world’s second largest and the last that sucks in more carbon than it releases. White said his country, which gets about 60% of its state revenue from oil, accepted that the oil economy would go and that greater emphasis needed to be placed on sustainable forestry and timber. The politician, originally from Manchester, said he had seen only small amounts of climate funding for his country despite big promises, which was driving frustration with the UN climate process.SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN