Former Irish president Mary Robinson has told African activists that their accounts of the devastating impact of climate change must be heard at COP17. Speaking yesterday to a group of around 50 campaigners at KwaZulu-Natal University in Durban, she said: “It is your voices that should be heard at this conference. I have heard more urgency in this room than I have heard in the big hall (of the COP conference centre).” And addressing their frustration that they have not been allowed to enter the conference centre to speak to delegates, she said: “I can promise you that I will use what you have told me on every opportunity that I have.”
She was speaking to activists from 10 African countries, many of whom had travelled more than 7000km to Durban on a climate change awareness-raising journey named the Caravan of Hope, organised by African climate change network PACJA. Among them were farmers, women’s rights campaigners and young people who explained how lives were already being affected by climate change in their communities.
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