Kenya on climate change

Kenya is to support a common position by Africa at the United Nations Copenhagen climate talks in December.

Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula said on Friday that the government was backing efforts by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who is leading the African bloc in the global warming talks.

"Pollution is a key concern in Africa, and we have to speak with one voice. Global warming is now affecting Africa like never before," he said.

Speaking during the German unification day in Nairobi, Mr Wetangula said Kenya will not sit back and watch rich nations treat the climate talks as a traditional trade meeting.

Mr Zenawi has been nominated to champion Africa's cause in the global climate change talks, and is scheduled to demand that billions of dollars be paid to the continent in compensation by carbon-intensive rich nations.

African countries are also to demand that industrialised nations take measures to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius and cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020.

The December 7-18 talks in Copenhagen, under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aim to craft a post-2012 pact for curbing the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming.