Tuesday September 9, 2025
Addis Ababa (HOL) — Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud
has urged the international community to scale up climate finance “at an
adequate scale and on appropriate terms,” stressing that Africa’s development
and global decarbonization are inseparable.
Speaking Tuesday at the Second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2)
in Addis Ababa, Mohamud underscored Somalia’s extreme vulnerability to climate
change despite its negligible role in global emissions.
He pointed to the devastating 2021–2023 drought, which
affected 7.8 million people — nearly half of Somalia’s population — causing
widespread food insecurity, loss of livelihoods, and mass displacement.
The president outlined Somalia’s recent climate milestones,
including the Green Somalia Initiative to plant 10 million trees, a $10 million
pledge to the Great Green Wall, establishment of the National Climate Fund, and
a $100 million Green Climate Fund partnership launched in 2024. Somalia was
also the first East African nation to submit its updated Nationally Determined
Contribution (NDC) 3.0, he noted.
“The climate crisis is exacting a severe toll on the Somali
people,” Mohamud said, urging global partners to operationalize and capitalize
loss and damage mechanisms, turning pledges into “predictable, timely
disbursements that reach frontline countries like Somalia directly.”
Mohamud was accompanied by a high-level delegation including
Deputy Prime Minister Salah Ahmed Jama, Environment Minister Lt. Gen. Bashir
Mohamed Jama, Foreign Minister Abdisalam Abdi Ali (Dhaay), Finance Minister
Bihi Iman Egeh, and Somalia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Abdullahi Warfa,
underscoring what officials described as a “united front” on climate
leadership.