“Walk the talk”, Caritas Uganda Urges Developed Countries to Actualize COP27 Promises

Aguti Betty Rose, Caritas Uganda’s Policy and Advocacy Specialist. Credit: ACI Africa

In a Tuesday, May 23 interview with ACI Africa, the Policy and Advocacy Specialist of Caritas Uganda, Ms. Aguti said, “A lot of commitments were made during COP27, but this is far from reality.”

“What I call upon the whole world is to commit. Let's not be liars by committing one thing and we don't fulfill it. We must walk the talk,” Ms. Aguti said, and added, “The Western countries are over-industrialized and because of this industrialization, the less developed countries suffer the effects of climate change.” 

Christine Laura Okello, Caritas Uganda’s Humanitarian Emergency Coordinator. Credit: ACI Africa

She said Western countries “must walk the talk, and then they must actualize what they commit.”

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Ms. Aguti also called for responsibility on the part of individuals in their respective communities, particularly on managing solid waste.

She said, “We discovered there is a very big challenge of solid waste management in our communities.  Communities are waiting for someone to come and clean up the mess that they cause”

“Let us be responsible for how we dump the waste we generate,” Ms. Aguti said in her message to ACI Africa on the occasion of the May 21-28 Laudato Si’ week, the annual event launched in 2016 to commemorate the anniversary of the Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis “on care for our common home”, published on 24 May 2015.

She added, “Manufacturing companies must take responsibility and have a corporate responsibility to help communities to dispose of the waste and to destroy the waste that is generated out of their products.”

For instance, the Caritas Uganda official said, “factories that are generating plastics should support the communities using their products by clearing off the waste that is generated from their products, for example, polythene bags and bottles.”

Also speaking to ACI Africa on May 23, the Caritas Uganda Humanitarian Emergency Coordinator, Ms. Okello, advocated for partnerships to realize afforestation in African countries. 

The Caritas Uganda team in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Caritas Internationalis

Western nations, Ms. Okello said, need “to help these other countries in Africa who are suffering the effects of climate change with funding to do afforestation, with funding to do other innovations, with funding for all other aspects to do with climate change.” 

“There is need to support climate-vulnerable countries with climate finance for addressing loss and damage to realize global stability,” she said in her message to ACI Africa on this year’s Laudato Si’ Week, marked under the theme, "Hope for Earth, Hope for Humanity".