Taliban Government Joins Climate Change Talks
The Taliban government has entered its first talks with the United Nations, donors and non-governmental organizations over the impact of climate change in Afghanistan, organizers said Wednesday.
After four decades of war, Afghanistan ranks as one of the countries least prepared to face the effects of climate change, which is spurring extreme weather and warping natural environments.
Foreign aid to Afghanistan has dwindled since the Taliban takeover in 2021, with donors wary of backing a government considered a pariah, leaving poor and climate-vulnerable communities further exposed.
The Norwegian Afghanistan Committee (NAC) co-hosted three days of talks ending Tuesday, country director Terje Watterdal told reporters at a news conference in Kabul.
He said it was the first time Taliban officials “joined a parallel session, face-to-face and online, with a broad range of their counterparts in the West since the change of government in August 2021.”
The talks included universities, diplomats, UN agencies, donors and grassroots members of Afghan society.
All sides agreed that “both individual and collective action is required both inside and outside of Afghanistan,” Watterdal said.
International opinion has been starkly split over how to deal with the Taliban authorities that have enforced an austere vision of Islamic rule in Afghanistan.
