MARTIN MAWAYA
GWERU-Government has been exhorted to heighten mitigation and adaptation efforts in order to unlock climate financing from the international green donors.
The call was made by climate change expert, Peter Makwanya in an interview with The Midweek Watch.
Makwanya said climate financing should target sensitive economic sectors such as agriculture, transport, energy, forestry and manufacturing.
“Zimbabwe needs climate finance to enable enhanced actions in financing capacity building and technology transfers. The country needs to scale up it’s mitigation and adaptation efforts so that it unlocks the financial inflows from respective international green donors. It is the duty of the country to seek to finance climate proof programs and climate resilient measures.
“In terms of mitigation, climate finance is supposed to help lower carbon emissions in agriculture, transport, energy, forestry and manufacturing. These are the most climate sensitive economic sectors and the main sources of emissions,” said Makwanya.
He called for appropriate and ambitious climate actions and relevant policies to reduce emissions by 2030.
He however, bemoaned bottle necks, routines and frustrations encountered by developing countries in their attempts to access climate finance.
“Climate finance, may sound good and appears the best tonic that developed countries need to mitigate the effects of climate change but it has its own challenges. In Africa, some countries have received more and improved climate finance packages than others. Furthermore, climate financial packages are not enough to benefit all developing countries
“Worse still, the sources of climate finance are still the same that provided suffocating and crippling debts to developing countries,” added Makwanya.
Climate finance remains a critical enabler of global climate initiatives at country specific levels.
Recently, Government told the inaugural Africa Climate Summit that climate change is retarding economic development in all fronts, hence the need for African countries to enhance cooperation and act collectively in addressing these challenges.
