Message Seleshi bekele

sequester the world’s carbon, feed our people more efficiently, and reduce the impacts of climate change. In 2019, Ethiopia planted 353 million trees in a single day, as part of the Green Legacy Project, setting what is believed to be a new world record. The total number of seedlings planted as part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Green Legacy Project is expected to surpass 33 billion trees before the end of 2024.

Ethiopia has also signed a $40 million dollar agreement with the World Bank to help communities and local governments reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon sequestration through forest preservation and other environmentally friendly land use techniques. Projects unded by this agreement are expected to reduce 4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. And we expect to generate an additional $60 million dollars in the next six years from private sector carbon credit projects as well.

These projects help us feed our people and generate additional export revenue. Over the last six years, agroforestry and sustainable land use projects organized by the Oromia Coffee Producers Union have generated more than a million euros through the sale of carbon credits, meaning that every cup of delicious, hot coffee – from the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia – is not just good for the soul and the tastebuds. It’s good for the planet.

Ethiopia has also signed a $40 million dollar agreement with the World Bank to help communities and local governments reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon sequestration through forest preservation and other environmentally friendly land use techniques.

But Ethiopia should not have to go it alone. Each year, pollution created by the world’s industrial powers literally consumes the land we use to feed our people, by exacerbating the climate-driven effects of desertification, impacting irrigated croplands whose soils are often degraded by the accumulation of salts; and rain-fed croplands, which suffer from increasingly erratic rainfall and wind-driven soil erosion. Ethiopia is doing the work. I call on the global family of nations to roll up their sleeves and help us before it is too late for those of us who reside in the countries that suffer most from climate change, and then eventually for the rest of the world ■

Today’s leaders and organizations are grappling with greater divisions and contradictions that present barriers to change and lasting impact. By bringing diverse stakeholders and ideas together, inspiring confidence, and working beyond traditional boundaries, APCO builds the un/common ground upon which progress is made.

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