Climate action: Talk is cheap
HUMAN history has shown that it does not cost anyone to say something, but the real difficulty is in doing it!
The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP27, will be held from November 6 to 18 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
COP takes place each year, unless the parties to the Convention agree otherwise.
The Year 2022 will see the 27th occurrence of the conference.
The COP comes together to review the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which has the ultimate goal of limiting human impact on the climate system.
It is a global initiative with a view to building on previous successes and paving way for future ambition to effectively tackle the global challenge of climate change.
But just like radio or television talk shows where well-known personalities such as Opprah Winfrey, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Conan O’Brien interview celebrities and other guests; COP27 risks being just another talk show.
COP27 risks losing its relevance if agreed decisions are not practically implemented.
To put matters into context, COP26, held last year at the SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, seek to limit global warming to a maximum of 1,8 degrees.
It also set targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction, methane emissions reduction as well as the organisation of the carbon market and how to finance the energy transition of poor countries.
One year down the line, very little, if anything, has been done towards financing the ‘poor’ countries’ transition to climate change friendly sources of energy.
Thus, without a commitment to fund renewable energy resources, COP27 could be yet another talk show!
ln a recent wide-ranging interview with The Manica Post, Zimbabwe’s Environment, Tourism, Climate Change and Hospitality Industry Minister, Honourable Mangaliso Ndlovu said Africa needs urgent solutions to its problems.
“As we go to COP27, I am very happy that we are coming from our African Ministers of Environment Conference held in Senegal last week. We were able to articulate and lay a framework for our engagement in Egypt.
“Africa clearly wants an African outcome in Egypt. We want an outcome that will compel the developed nations which are responsible for this crisis we are facing to avail the funding they pledged.
“The funding should go towards mitigation efforts, more importantly, towards adaptation programmes. Our people are disproportionately affected by a problem they did not create. We cannot have the developed world dictating terms on how our people should adapt to the changing environment.
“We know our systems, and all that is required is funding and to some extent transfer. We had our side meeting as ministers where we emphasised the need to speak with one voice in this regard,” said Minister Ndlovu.
“We told them the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP) can easily supply adequate power to between 10 to 14 countries along the Zambezi River in Sub-Saharan Africa, but it needs funding. If they are not willing to provide funding, it means all these targets we are setting remain in vain,” he said.
SAPP was created in August 1995 at the SADC Summit in Kempton Park, South Africa, when member governments of SADC (excluding Mauritius) signed an Inter-Governmental Memorandum of Understanding for the formation of an electricity power pool.
The ministers responsible for energy in the SADC region signed the Revised Inter-Governmental Memorandum of Understanding on February 23, 2006.
Sadly recent findings revealed that the inhibiting factors for SAPP are shortcomings in regional institutions and at government level, financial scarcity, inadequate grid, lack of interconnection among the member states, a low skills base for renewable energy integration.
All this speaks to lack of funding. On the other hand, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the Paris Agreement – a legally binding international treaty on Climate Change that was adopted by 196 Parties at COP21 in Paris, on December 12, 2015.
NDCs embody efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
The Paris Agreement (Article 4, paragraph 2) requires each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions that it intends to achieve.
“Parties should also pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions.
On the NDCs, Minister Ndlovu said: “We are very ambitious with the NDCs, but those targets require funding. Without funding they will just remain our own contributions on paper, yet we are keen to contribute.
“Just one example, there is so much noise about coal. Others say we need to phase down while some say we need to phase it out.
“Realistically, Africa needs to develop and what solutions are there on the table? You cannot easily run away from coal as a key course of energy unless there is investment in hydro sources of energy,” he said.
Minister Ndlovu said there should be a form of compensation to countries affected by climate change related disasters, including the March 2019 Cyclone Idai that destroyed human and animal life, as well as infrastructure in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi.
“We believe that we need a mechanism whereby countries that are affected by climate change disasters are compensated or assisted to cope and recover.
“We also hope that there will be consideration for what we call loss and damage as a result of climate change. We are suffering huge losses,” said Minister Ndlovu.
“We are also looking forward to COP27 with the hope that Africa will come out victorious. Africa will contribute meaningfully to this climate change discourse,” he said.