South Africa: Climate change from an African perspective

The Kyoto Protocol is due to expire next year. Twenty thousand politicians, delegates and experts from 191 countries met in Durban, South Africa, from November 30th - December 9th to agree on developing a new deal to reduce carbon emissions. Climate experts and environmental organizations are criticizing the outcome, saying the current economic crisis and half-hearted political decisions continue to hamper progress in the fight against climate change.

Climate protection activists are warning about the consequences ahead, especially in Africa. Famine, floods and desertification will increase, they say, and the effects - including economic ones - are unpredictable. Still, climate change has received little coverage in the African media, and only a few stations and publishing houses could afford to send correspondents to the conference.

As a result, DW Akademie invited journalists from nine local radio stations to report on the conference from an African perspective. They produced more than three dozen reports in Amharic, German (for Namibia), English, Hausa, Kiswahili, Portuguese and Somali and relayed them back to their own countries. Their topics were as diverse as the effects of climate change themselves - from climate-related art on sustainable development to climate-conscious food production and consumption.

"Listeners, especially in rural areas, are hardly aware of climate change," says Vincent Afande from the Kenyan Royal Media Service, "but my reports are broadcast throughout the country." He says he constantly get calls from Kenyan listeners responding to his coverage.


The Durban workshop was supported by the United Nations climate change secretariat (UNFCCC), the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the German Embassy in Pretoria.