Lazarus Chakwera arrives in Glasgow for CoP26
President Lazarus Chakwera arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, on Saturday, in time for the Conference of Parties (CoP) 26 United Nations Climate Change Conference which the United Kingdom (UK) and Italy are hosting in partnership.
Upon arrival, the President was welcomed by Malawi’s Foreign Affairs Minister Eisenhower Mkaka and Deputy High Commissioner of Malawi to the UK Quent Kalichero, among others officials.
The President is accompanied by First Lady (FL) Monica Chakwera, who is also expected to attend a number of official meetings in her capacity as FL.
The conference started yesterday and will run through to November 12 2021 at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, UK.
The CoP Bureau re-scheduled the conference initially slated for November 2020 to avoid escalating the Covid pandemic and also ensure that all parties had enough time for preparations.
CoP26 is the biggest climate summit since the Paris Agreement was inked in 2015 and serves as a forum where countries are expected to reaffirm their commitments to tackling climate change challenges, which they regard as an emergency
Apart from the CoP26 conference, Chakwera will have bilateral meetings with Malawi’s development partners and would-be partners.
Speaking on October 26 in the United Arab Emirates, from where he has connected to Scotland, Chakwera billed technology and innovation as a sure way of dealing with increasing threats from climate change.
Chakwera said if there was an issue in which technology and innovation were desperately needed, it was climate change.
He described climate change as a crime against humanity.
“By continuing to pollute the rivers, lakes, and seas that contain the water we drink; by continuing to degrade the land that grows the crops we eat; by continuing to putrefy the very air we breathe; by continuing to destroy the very ecosystems that sustain the balance and harmony between us and the natural world; and by continuing to destabilise the weather patterns around which we have structured our societies and economies, we have become as insane as the man who drinks poison and hopes that someone else will die,” he said.— Mana and The Daily Times
