In Lesotho, UN chief Guterres urges rich nations to meet new commitments on climate finance

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged rich nations to honor their new commitments to help the world’s poorer countries fight climate change in a speech to Lesotho’s Parliament

MASERU, Lesotho -- United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday urged rich nations to honor their commitments to help the world's poor countries fight climate change in a speech to Lesotho's Parliament and repeated his hope that Africa would soon have permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.

Guterres is on a three-day visit to southern Africa and was in South Africa on Wednesday. His two-day trip to neighboring Lesotho, a small landlocked mountainous kingdom, will also see him visit the Katse Dam, an integral part of the country's plans to harness its water reserves.

A focus of Guterres' visit has been the money poor nations in Africa and elsewhere need to deal with the impact of a warming planet. While Africa contributes a tiny amount to global warming, it is one of the worst affected continents.

Countries adopted an agreement at the U.N. climate talks in Azerbaijan last month to inject at least $300 billion a year to help developing nations cope with global warming. It was far short of the more than $1 trillion developing countries were calling for.

"Developed countries must meet their commitments ... and deliver the promised $300 billion annually for climate finance," Gutteres said to Lesotho's lawmakers. “Landlocked and least developed countries like yours are especially vulnerable.”

He also said the new Loss and Damage Fund that was created to compensate poor countries for natural disasters caused by climate change “must be operationalized swiftly and funded generously by those most responsible for climate destruction.”

Southern Africa is in the grip of one of its worst droughts, triggering a hunger crisis that has affected more than 27 million people, according to the U.N. Lesotho is one of several countries to declare national disasters because of the drought's devastating impact on crops.

The drought has been blamed on the naturally occurring El Niño weather phenomenon, but other crises like recent deadly cholera outbreaks and floods across the East African region have been attributed to climate change.

A report this year by the World Meteorological Organization said African nations are losing up to 5% of their gross domestic product every year and bearing a heavier burden than others from climate change.

Guterres said in South Africa on Wednesday that he hoped that Africa would have at least two permanent members of the Security Council by the time his term ends in December 2026, although he acknowledged it would be difficult. In Lesotho, he said it was another “injustice” against Africa that a continent of more than 1.4 billion still had no permanent representation on that body.

“When a continent that is home to nearly a fifth of humanity remains systematically excluded from global decision-making, we must call this what it is, a relic of colonialism that has no place in today’s world,” Guterres said.

On Friday, Guterres is due to visit the Katse Dam, which is part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. The project aims to build a series of dams and tunnels to redirect some of Lesotho's water into South Africa's river system to help ease its neighbor's water shortages.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

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