• Co-Organizers
  • Government of Japan
  • United Nations (OSAA)
  • UNDP
  • World Bank
• The Yokohama Declaration
  • 1.0 Introduction
  • 2.0 Recent Trends and Challenges
  • 3.0 Boosting Economic Growth
  • 4.0 Achieving the MDGs
  • 5.0 Consolidation of Peace and Good Governance
  • 6.0 Addressing Environmental Issues and Climate Change
  • 7.0 A Broadened Partnership
  • 8.0 The Way Forward
• The Yokohama Action Plan
• Follow-up Mechanism
• Chair's Summary
• Japan's Initiatives
• The road to Yokohama 2008

6.0 Addressing Environmental Issues and Climate Change:
To establish "Cool Earth Partnership"

6.1 Climate Change:

• The Participants at TICAD IV noted that African countries, which emit the least and embrace the Congo Basin, considered as the second largest ecological "lung" in the world, have generally been extremely vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change, including increased environmental degradation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and droughts and desertification that further threaten food security and health, as well as to increasingly frequent extreme weather patterns. African countries continue to be inadequately equipped in terms of their mitigation and adaptation capacities.
• The Participants at TICAD IV recognized the need to assist Africa to enhance environment protection initiatives and welcomed the initiatives taken by Africans themselves including the International Solidarity Conference on Climate Change Strategies for African and Mediterranean Regions held in Tunisia in November 2007. African countries appreciated Japan's "Cool Earth Promotion Programme" and acknowledged Japan's efforts in seeking to develop an international framework looking beyond the first steps taken in the current Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
• In this regard, the Participants welcomed the announcement by the Government of Japan, in January 2008, of its intention to establish a "Cool Earth Partnership" with US $ 10 billion Financial Mechanism on the basis of policy consultations between Japan and developing countries - including African countries - to address the effects of climate change and to modernize their industries, by way of technology-transfer, to render them more energy-efficient and more environment-friendly.

6.2 Water: Securing access to water and sanitation

• The Participants acknowledged the importance of water as an indispensable resource for addressing development needs such as health, agriculture/food production, disaster risk reduction, and peace and security. They also acknowledged that it was essential to promote the sustainable use of water resources.

6.3 Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

• The Participants acknowledged the importance of the Education for Sustainable Development initiative and its promotion to address environmental issues effectively.