Africa’s adapting to climate change, new climate research in the Antarctic

Africa’s adapting to climate change and new climate research in the Antarctic were topics Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg stressed as he left Oslo today for his climate journey to South Africa and the Antarctic Continent.

“Climate challenges will hit Africa hard, and that is why I want to draw the attention to how countries like Norway may contribute to Africa’s adapting to climate change”, Prime Minister Stoltenberg said.

Africa represents a negligible amount of the world’s CO2 emissions, but climate change has already hit the continent hard. As the world’s poorest continent marked by frequent conflict, bad governance and epidemic diseases, Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate changes and lacks the ability to cope with these. Drought, flooding, desertification and reduced food security and access to water, are some of the effects many African countries have already been seeing.

On 18 January the Prime Minister will open a conference in Cape Town with some of South-Africa’s leading climate scientists, together with South Africa’s Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk and Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Mathai.

Climate research in the International Polar Year
On 19 January Mr. Stoltenberg will travel from Cape Town to Norway’s research station Troll on the Antarctic Continent. 

”The Antarctic is the world’s leading climate laboratory. Here we are able to see the history of climate change and changes in global emissions. This helps us understand the present situation better, and research carried out in the Antarctic may offer invaluable information on the further development of the climate situation”, Mr. Stoltenberg said.

Norway’s Troll station in Queen Maud Land has been upgraded and became an all-year research station in 2005. The major fields of Norway’s Antarctic research is climate, oceanography, marine ecosystems, cultural monuments, biology, environmental poison and human influence.

An important Norwegian research project in the International Polar Year is the Norwegian-US expedition now on its way from Troll to the South Pole. The plan is that the expedition will reach the South Pole during the Prime Minister’s stay at Troll.

”The expedition will provide completely new knowledge on climate change and I look forward to receiving their first reports when they arrive”, Prime Minister Stoltenberg said.