Zim releases Poland climate talks position paper

Zimbabwe has released its position paper ahead of the annual UN climate negotiation to be held early December in Katowice, Poland.

THE paper stresses out several key issues that would be acceptable to the country for a successful outcome, but hammers strongly on three subjects of poignant interest - climate change adaptation, mitigation and finance.

Among other things, lead climate negotiator Washington Zhakata, urged members of the Zimbabwean team of negotiators to “resist” any attempts to smuggle in concepts that are foreign to the true spirit of the Paris Agreement by negotiators from other countries (read developed countries).

He spoke of the need to keep negotiations in lane, as championed by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change while hitting hard on the necessity of transparency, accountability, technological support and availability of climate funding in the implementation of the Paris accord.

Mr Zhakata touched on loss and damage, but stressed more how Africa’s development will not be hindered nor burdened by unreasonable demands on measured natural resource exploitation by those sitting pretty in wealthy Western nations.

“Adaptation is an overriding priority for Africa, acknowledgment of current and short term expected impacts should not be overlooked, and shall remain an essential element of any outcome,” said Mr Zhakata, who is also the director for climate change in the Agriculture and Climate Ministry.

”We should therefore emphasize that global action to tackle climate change has two equal streams: The first is adaptation to adverse impacts, the second is reducing emissions,” he added, in a paper released to The Herald Business.

He stated that “it is to be noted that current adverse impacts are additional burden on African countries.

That needs to be dealt with and acknowledged by the international community, with developed countries providing for sustainable, predictable support to assist national actions should be an essential element of the outcomes.

There should be parity in the implementation and financing of adaptation and mitigation.”

Zimbabwe faces some of the greatest risks from climate change. Its agro-based economy is often at the mercy of climate-linked extreme events such as drought, flooding and tropical cyclones, all of which have increased in intensity and frequency in recent decades.

In 2015, the country committed to work towards curbing climate change under the Paris Agreement. Zimbabwe said it will cut energy-related greenhouse gases emissions by about 33 percent by 2030, without relenting on economic development.

Zimbabwe’s emissions reductions are conditional on financial and technological support from industrialised countries, the giant emitters historically responsible for all the world’s existing climate change problems.

Mitigation in totality

“Mitigation should be viewed in its totality,” Mr Zhakata detailed in the paper, which corresponds with expectations from the rest of the continent under the African Group, a focussed continental body for the purpose of the multilateral, yearly climate talks.

“Mitigation is reducing emissions from all possible sources, and it is not about targeting specific source/s of fuel, in this regard, the focus is on reducing emissions and not eliminating or writing off any source of energy, but rather ensure transfer of technologies needed to reduce emissions,” he explained.

On natural resource use, Zhakata said there must be “acknowledgment of national actions taken by African countries and that the continent’s special situation is based on resources, vulnerabilities, historical responsibility, urgent and short term needs for adaptation and limited mitigation potential.”

The negotiations should ensure no negative impact on African economies, ecosystems, socio-cultural well-being, national sovereignty, and should secure policy space for Africa as a continent and for African countries, he added.

Mr Zhakata’s paper comes just weeks after the release of a special report by the UN expert panel on climate change, which showed the inadequacy of existing global pledges under the Paris Agreement.

Paris targets to keep global temperature rise well below 2°C in this century and to pursue efforts to bring it further down, to 1,5°C.

The Poland meeting is expected to come up with measures that meet up with the latest scientific findings.

One of the key items for achieving that is for negotiators to agree to a rulebook to guide the implementation of the Paris treaty, at the latest, by December 14, when the two-week Katowice meeting ends.

So far, it doesn’t look like a feasible target after several disagreements by negotiators over the rulebook in earlier preparatory meetings this year.

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