A United Nations Official has concluded that Africans will only pay attention to climate change when it can be couched in human consequences:
“Most people are unable to relate to the projections of increase in temperature or the impact of climate change on the economy, but if the climate change forecasts are linked to possible deaths, then countries will be forced to contemplate prevention plans,” said Yvette Stevens, the former UN Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator.
“We need a 'stern review’ of the human costs; people are not motivated by the impact of climate change on a country's gross domestic product (GDP),” added Stevens, who retired from the UN recently.
Actually, I cannot help but wonder if Africans are especially unique in this respect. For all of the attention this issue receives in the United States, for example, it seems pretty clear that huge numbers of Americans are pretty blithely untouched by climate change in terms of how they live their lives.
