Youth up in the arms against climate change in Uganda

By Mubiru Ivan

The youth are putting up a strong fight against climate change in Uganda through empowering people to embrace sustainable use of natural resources.

While speaking at the national conference on climate change, disaster risk reduction, SDGs and youth participation on Thursday, Bonita Murungi Arinaitwe, a student from Nabisunsa High School said that there is need to reduce natural resource exploitation by recycling,  conserving energy and planting trees.

The event took place at the Office of the Prime Minister Conference Hall under the theme “Youth propelling climate action and SDGs to fulfillment”.

“What we do now will determine or affect the children and future generation. On 11 October, 17 people died due to mudslides in Bududa district all because of climate change,” she said adding that, “we see lot of sand storms in South Sudan arising from high temperatures which affect a lot of settlements and gardens,”

She further revealed that children are more likely to be affected by the consequences of climate change, “so we need to do something about this by engaging in nature conservation and rehabilitation like planting trees”.

At the same function, the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, said there is need to make tree planting a way of life.
”Do it at your birthday, graduation, marriage and all the other milestones in your life, ” she said.

Kadaga noted that Ethiopia declared a decade of planting 12 million trees per year; and Costa Rica had a rich ecosystem, which they destroyed and the tourism industry collapsed because of that.

On the other hand, Dr. Mary Goretti Kitutu, the Minister of State for Environment said that government and the youth need to re-echo the principle of sustainable development.

“I encourage the youth to demand for sustainable use of their resources from which we the adults borrow because they are going to live on earth to witness the adverse effects of climate change if nothing is done,” she said.