“If developing countries do not enhance the adaptive capacities and integrate climate change risks into key development priorities, climate change could compromise progress towards Millennium Development Goals,” said Mr. Almamy Camara in statement delivered on behalf of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Country Representative in The Gambia.

According to Mr. Camara, the need to maximise opportunities for inclusive growth and human development presupposes that climate change risks had to be managed and, he emphasised, that required building upon what is known to address future climate change risks and uncertainties.

“UNDP’s positive role representing the UN in development countries puts it at the heart of the United Nations response to climate change. UNDP’s mission with climate change adaptation is to safeguard the MDGs in the face of climate change and its impacts,” he added.

He pointed out that in Africa climate change is already having profound and potentially irreversible impacts on the continent’s economy, social and environmental systems.

This, he went on, is increasingly apparent from the frequency and intensity in the occurrence of national imbalances and climate- related disasters on the continent, including recurrent drought and other extreme weather events.

“While most African countries are increasingly suffering from the detrimental effects of climate change, they cannot be held accountable for historic anthropogenic green house gas emissions,” Mr. Camara noted, adding that the time to doubt the real and potential impacts of climate change has passed and failure to act now could result to irreversible changes.

Mr. Almamy Camara was reading this statement on behalf of the UNDP Country Representative to The Gambia at the opening of a three-day sub-regional training workshop on green house inventory methodologies held at the Atlantic Hotel on Wednesday.

The workshop, among others, aims to train participants on improved inventory management with special reference to data control and analysis in the national inventory system, key source analysis and quality assurance in GHG inventory as well as hands- on training in agriculture.