In terms of media coverage, the next COP, the one scheduled to be held in Egypt in November 2022, is likely to be an exception. The Pan-African Media Alliance for Climate Change and Africa On Air want to make this African meeting of the COP a special event. And there is no special event without the media. This is what the Nairobi meeting is worth. Since July 26, 2022, around 40 journalists have been training on the various themes relating to climate change. Setting chosen for the occasion, the Pindelnn-Azure Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. Didier Hubert Madafime, in Nairobi, reports.
The fact, it is rare and deserves to be mentioned, it is not common to experience an animation of the kind during an opening ceremony of a training, which moreover, is devoted to climate change whose media men are the beneficiaries.
However, this is what happened on July 26, 2022, at the Prindelnn-Azurze Hotel in Nairobi, the setting chosen to host this conference called “The Africa Climate Story Media Initiative” and, to make it simpler, it is the Africa Climate Story Media Initiative.
Esmond Majanha is the one who made all the journalists dance under one of his songs with the title “What have we done”, literally What have we done? In a drumbeat mixed with cries of birds and fuzziness reminiscent of the bush, the journalists took up in heart “climate change is real”, quite simply “climate change is a reality”.
It is, moreover, this theme that brings together for a few days some 40 journalists, all media combined, from the four corners of the continent.
The challenge of returning to Nairobi
It is the International Coordinator of PAMACC (Pan-African Media Alliance for Climate Change), Isaiah Esipisu, who underlines this in his welcome address. Journalists have a role to play in the dissemination of information, which is why he invited them to be attentive to communications in order to draw from them the essential elements for their work in order to better promote the climate cause.
When he took the floor after the latter, the Kenyan Minister of the Environment, Kériako Tobiko, marked the spirits with his outspokenness, namely that the problems which block Africans from facing their resilience are “the lack of investment” and the “lack of capacity”.
He pleads for the solutions, in this case, the solutions to be applied to the African continent in the context of climate change, to be of a specific nature. He welcomed the initiative because these kinds of meetings are, without a doubt, opportunities to build the capacity of journalists to enable them to do their job better, that of sharing information with the populations.
Some players who are better informed about climate change issues also intervened, but by video conference to recall some useful information related to global warming.
This is the case of Ambassador Ayman Amin, whose country is hosting COP27. Agriculture, according to him, is scheduled to be the main issue of discussion during this great climate mass and it is at every point of seen as an important issue for Africans. Following him Ephraim Mwepuya Shitime, the Head of the group of African negotiators.
His communication revolved around the main topics that travelled from COP to COP, namely adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage, technology transfer. Let’s hope that COP27 will open real prospects for a continent that is paying for a fault it did not commit. The whole day of Tuesday, July 26, 2022, was devoted to the various communications planned in this context.
Courtesy: PAMACC News Agency
