Uganda has joined over 155 countries to sign the Paris agreement on climate where countries pledged to work to limit the rising temperatures and combat climatic change.

196 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention of climatic change in Paris approved the agreement on December 12 2015 after a long process of diplomatic engagements and panel beating over measures to include in the global package.

Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda who represented Uganda at the agreement signing ceremony held at the UN headquarters in New York last Friday told the delegation that the signing of this agreement opens a new chapter in the global efforts to put into action the undertaking of curbing climatic change.

“All of us must commit ourselves to carrying this bold step forward by ratifying and eventually domesticating the said agreement in order to give it the necessary legal effect under our respective national legislation,” Ruganda said.

He however pointed out the lack of financing, weak institutional and human capacities to effectively respond to environmental challenges, in most African countries as a stumbling block towards achieving the Agreement goals and called upon developed countries to offer support to Africa.

“This is the context in which we urge our developed country partners that have required means to come in and partner with us in addressing these gaps,” He said.

He added that such countries should significantly mobilize and provide new and additional sealed up financial flows, support enhancement of scientific and technological innovations, and increase assistance for human resource and institutional capacity in Africa to enable a full implementation of climatic change actions.

Uganda’s strategy.

The Prime Minister announced to the delegates that Uganda has taken various actions to operationalise some relevant commitments under the Agreement.

A full integration of measures to address the effects of climate change in the long term aspiration has been put in  ’Uganda vision 2040’ and the second National Development Plan (FY2015/16-FY2019/20) ,and that the government has prioritized climate change among the issues to address over the next five years.

This ,according to Rugunda ,will be a achieved through building a sustainable green economy with focus on increased use of renewable resources of energy ,restoration of degraded ecosystem and demarcation of critical wetlands and forests boundaries.

The Agreement.

In the agreement, all countries pledged to work to limit the temperature rise overall below 2 degrees Celsius .The period of signature will remain open for one year and each country, upon signing  must also submit a proposal plan for action on the agreement to officially ratify the Paris Agreement.

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Makerere University is planning to construct two five star hotels, one at the Makerere campus where the Guest House is currently located, and the other in the leafy suburb of Kololo.

Speaking exclusively to the EagleOnline, the University Vice Chancellor Prof Sentamu Ddumba said the developments will be part of a varsity long-term programme that also includes building apartments in Makindye, Kabanyolo and Katalemwa.

“Now, regarding your question, do we have other sources of revenue? Yes, but what we did when I came into office is to set long term plans; I can’t talk about quick money; we are not in business; we are not supposed to do that and that’s not our core business but we have land and much of our core effort now is focusing on land, real estate and construction of apartments in Makindye,” Prof Ddumba said adding that the university will also intends to use its land in Soroti and Kibaale for commercial tree-planting activities.

“As of now we don’t have money and we are going to use our forestry people here to start planting trees,” he said, adding that all the university investments are going to be held in trust by a yet-to-be-started company, the Makerere Holding Company under the chairmanship of Mr Charles Mbiire.

However, Prof Ddumba acknowledged that the university faced constraints, both logistical and monetary, in executing all its plans.

It is a long process, we don’t have the money we have to look for the partners and how do you start constructing apartments without a law? The law of public private partnership (PPP) has just come and we must work within the law. That said, we have too many plans but then we are constrained because the ownership is not private, its government and this is a public institution so whatever we suggest here, even borrowing money; it’s not easy to borrow money from the banks, we would be doing that, but the Ministry of Education must agree to that first,” Prof Ddumba said.

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