Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki Sawyer, has delivered a brilliant speech on Friday 24th September, 2021 in Stuttgart, Germany at the start of the premiere of the play “Okozid”.
The play is a court-room drama set in the year 2034 at the International Court of Justice where Global South countries have brought charges against industrial countries for their neglect of climate protection regulations.
In her speech before a galaxy of world leaders and her contemporaries, Mayor Aki Sawyerr emphasized the fact that Freetown, like many other cities in the Global South is already experiencing the impact of abnormal weather patterns.
She went further to explain that climate change is significantly affecting millions of people in Africa even though as a continent, “we only contribute between 0.55- 2% of global GHG emissions.”
She maintained reiterated that the call for action to match rhetoric and for global GHG emissions to be reduced is now and not later.
Also in attendance at the event was the Mayor of Mannheim, Peter Kurz (President of the Global Parliament of Mayors), Thekla Walker, Stuttgart Minister of the Environment, Michael Bloss, Member of the European Parliament and Councillor Musa Sesay of Ward 421, Freetown among many other eminent personalities.
Other speakers at the event re-echoed Mayor Aki Sawyerr’s call for global action to mitigate actions destroying the climate.
At the end of her speech which received thunderous applause, dignitaries from across the world that were at the conference literally fought over themselves to take photographs with Mayor Aki Sawyerr to the extent that she was described by one German environmental scientist as “a celebrity Mayor from Sierra Leone who has made Germany proud.”
She received bouquets and other exotic gifts from various members of the audience representing various organizations and countries.
