ED serious about climate change?

IREFER to your a opinion of November 16 titled Zim is set on tackling climate change written by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. To start with, Mnangagwa took an aeroplane that rivals Air Force 1, the US presidential plane. He obviously was not thinking of his carbon footprint let alone the footprint he would leave on the shattered Zimbabwe economy.

This extravagance was totally uncalled for when attending a conference where he would be pressing the economic giants to donate money to his corrupt government and the removal of sanctions.

Sanctions removal is obviously high on Mnangagwa's agenda as he took a whole bunch of clergy to try to convince the head of the Church of England to lobby for their removal. The archbishop gave a strong rebuttal to these men of the cloth.

How do these clergymen live with their conscience after travelling in such luxury, and presumably living in luxurious hotels, at the expense of their starving congregants?

If Mnangagwa was serious about the removal of sanctions, he would outlaw human rights abuses by his henchmen, stop corruption and level the electoral playing field. That is all the world and Zimbabweans are asking of him.

Of course, Zimbabwe is feeling the effects of climate change more than other countries. Since the fast track land reform programme, there has been massive destruction of forests for land clearing and firewood. This has created desert-like conditions throughout Zimbabwe and Zanu PF is hell bent on continuing with this disastrous policy irrespective of the droughts, famine and jobs lost, destruction of livelihoods and devastation of lives it has caused. Does he not know that trees, as well as converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, provide substantial moisture through transpiration to provide rain. Up to 30%!

Many commercial farmers looked after their vegetation, leaving as much undisturbed as possible non-arable areas. The new farmers rely on trees for firewood, largely for curing tobacco, and also for domestic fuel as they are too poor to afford alternative means. Mnangagwa makes no mention of this effect on global warming and droughts.

The President also seems oblivious to the fact that commercial farmers had littered the country with dams and could provide irrigation to enhance yields and stave off the effects of drought. All destroyed by Zanu PF!

The Nicolle brothers in Chinhoyi alone produced 50% of Zimbabwe's wheat and 20% of maize. After the 1991 drought, Richard Winkfield of ART Farm called on tobacco farmers to utilise their tobacco lands to help feed the nation.

This they did and the effects of the drought lasted just one year. Many commercial farmers continued with this policy until their farms were expropriated by Zanu PF.

Uncontrolled veldfires are another side effect of the haphazard Zanu PF government land policy as farmers clear their land, but do not bother to provide fire breaks. Sure, we now have the Environmental Management Authority (Ema), but Mnangagwa and all the other Zanu PF leaders do not give it much support.

Again this creates desert-like conditions and leads to droughts. Mnangagwa could contribute greatly to reducing global warming if he could throw his weight behind Ema on just this one issue. Just imagine a country as small as Zimbabwe is almost totally burning year in and year out.

Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe had reaffirmed its commitment to conserve its rich wildlife heritage, but behind the scenes there is uncontrolled poaching.

He talks about going green as far as energy is concerned, but the truth is that there is no money available for developing the huge dam on the Zambezi due to Zimbabwe's bad financial record, and the massive solar power station is still to take off because of corruption on the part of a friend of one of his sons.

Mnangagwa laments the fact that the developed world has not come up with the US$100 billion a year that had been promised and says all it needs is political will. How ironic when all Zimbabweans need political will on Mnangagwa and Zanu PF's part to allow free and fair elections. Then everything else will fall into place and Zimbabwe can start on a real growth trajectory, not the fictitious one the likes of Mnangagwa thinks we are on.

Zimbabweans could join the league of nations with their heads held high, not this sneaking into world forums to score political points.

Mbire