Zim Braces to Mitigate Climate Change Effects
Manica Youth Assembly (MAYA) and their #ParentsForFuture Chapter acknowledges the commitment by the Government of Zimbabwe to the Paris Agreement that seeks to hold an increase in global temperature to well below 2 degrees above the preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to reduce global carbon emissions. Zimbabwe’s position paper which includes the need for enhance adaptation action with the new finance, addressing loss and damage associated with the impact of climate change, narrowing emissions gap with the new enhanced 2030 climate change targets, a call to industrialised nations to fulfil the US$100 billion a year climate finance commitment and transitioning from fossil fuel emissions and aligning finance with Paris Agreement.
Zimbabwe has of late experienced adverse climate change induced crises such as devastating cyclones, floods, droughts, and fires that has resulted in loss of lives and damage of property worth millions of dollars. Apart from killing people and destroying infrastructure, floods have also worsened the problem of food shortages, increasing household vulnerability across.
Presently Zimbabwe has now adopted climate smart agriculture, through the implementation of the Pfumvudza programme, which the Government introduced to small scale farmers two years ago. Pfumvudza runs on three core underlying principles – minimum soil disturbance or tillage; digging holes for planting only, permanent soil cover by using organic mulch; crop rotations and intercropping cover crops with main crops. Although it is still in infancy, Pfumvudza is strategic in climate proofing and enhancing household food security, as attested by the bumper harvest that the country recorded in the just ended farming season.
But of course, like any other system, Pfumvudza cannot be implemented in isolation, it will need to be supported by various other realistic strategies to curb the effects of climate change.
Promotion of low carbon usage through investing in clean energy, sustainable transport and sustainable forestry management are also crucial areas that begs for everyone’s attention and involvement.
Climate change demands that Africa also introspects on the relationship between energy and development. In Sub Saharan alone, more people do not have access to electricity. Lack of adequate electricity-which is pricey anyway, affords nations an opportunity to invest in different forms of renewable energy.
Solar energy has already been touted as one of the most effective clean energies that works well in reducing carbon usage, while cutting energy bills for most homes. If anything, using solar can turn the country’s electricity’s shortage into an opportunity to modernise our power sector and build a low-carbon economy that’ll fuel growth for decades to come.
Such a progressive development in using solar energy, calls for investment is solar farms and other relative clean energy initiatives so that it becomes a shared vision and a beginning in building a low carbon economy.
NOTING that the Zimbabwe Country Position paper for COP26 is focusing and prioritising the following areas:
· Narrowing the emissions gap
· Climate finance
· Response measures
· Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA)
· Enhanced Action on Adaptation Loss and Damage
· Article 6 -Market Mechanisms and Sustainable Development
Outstanding Transparency Issues
After reflecting on the submitted government COP26 country position paper, Manica Youth Assembly we call upon the Government of Zimbabwe to consider the following issues:
· We are calling for the COP26 to push for a balance on the financing gaps between mitigation and adaptation funds.
We call on world leaders to commit once and for all to:
· Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
· Allocate significant financial resources to developing countries to help them mitigate the effects of climate change.
· Agree to make climate literacy mandatory in their educational systems.
· Provide substantial financial support to building the green economy infrastructure that will help us transition from fossil fuels.
· There must be capacity building and technology transfer to enable civil protection units and vulnerable communities to have early climate disaster warning systems and resilient infrastructure.
· Women and youths must be fully involved in decision-making processes related to climate adaptation, mitigation, and a just, green transition.
We call upon the COP26 to consider the establishment of a direct financial intervention by International financial institutions such as AfDB in developing localised and continental finance institutions to address the imbalance between adaptation and mitigation financing.
a. We strongly support the availability of climate finance. However, we call upon the COP26 to prioritise grant financing particularly to developing countries on issues of adaptation.
b. We call upon the COP26 to avail more financial resources to developing countries for the development of technologies that allow for the “fair and just transition” from emission intensive technologies and processes (e.g., coal and beef production).
c. We support the COP26 in the global stock take on financial gaps on mitigation and adaptation.
d. We call upon the COP26 to push for the establishment of continental carbon emissions verification bodies like those of the clean development mechanism.
But the fact that this crisis is not being responded to with the urgency of a global emergency is unfathomable. Burning fossil fuels is poisoning the air we breathe and fuelling the climate crisis.
This must STOP. And you can help!
We have no time to waste, We have no Planet B. We need action now!
By Manica Youth Assembly (MAYA)