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However, while the subject still has with it some unanswered questions with many developing countries showing lots of suspicion to some of the mitigation strategies being proposed, it is now undisputable that climate change is a reality, and has recently affected every human being on the planet earth.
And the painful part of the whole issue is that climate change affects everybody, the innocent and the guilty. The parties that are responsible for the greenhouse emissions or any other activities that have been largely identified as the major contributors to global climate risk are perhaps equally at the disadvantage as the poorest developing country in Africa.
This leaves the human race with no option but to adopt a collective sense of shared responsibility and devote all their efforts to deal with the threat before it is too late.
Zimbabwe has been listed among the hardest hit victims of climate change in recent years. Perpetual rainfall shortages and floods are among the major signs of a disrupted environmental system that are badly affecting the Zimbabwean populace. And because of this, the poor, especially rural communities are suffering a lot yet they are less too blame for much of the damage that has been done to the environment. With this in mind, it is evident that climate change is real and it is a matter of emergency.
In a statement recently, the World Food Programme (WFP) stated that this year’s cereals harvest was 1 076 772 metric tonnes-one third lower than that of last year and the lowest since 2009. According to the statement, the impact will be felt hardest at the peak of the hunger season from March next year.
WFP’s seasonal Targeted Assistance programme, due to run through till the end of March next year, has been budgeted at $119 million but is currently facing a shortfall of $87 million.
This is a sad prediction that is in itself an early warning that Zimbabweans are likely to go hungry more than ever before amid intensifying evidence of the impact of climate change.
The statistics from the WFP come courtesy of the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment (ZimVac) Report which is conducted annually by the Government in collaboration with UN agencies and NGOs.
Presenting a paper during the Climate Change Awareness Workshop for Civil Society at Rainbow Towers early this month, Mr Sebastian Grey of Oxfam GB noted that climate change is perhaps the biggest threat and global challenge which should be taken seriously.
“Already nearly one billion people worldwide suffer from hunger and lack of food and income security and this is set to increase as a result of climate change,” he said adding “Climate change is expected to pose a challenge for food production and food security around the world.
Zimbabwe is not excluded from this tragedy as since the 1990s, the country has experienced systematic reduction in rainfall with the government constantly having to declare food shortages in the country national crises. Thanks to a variety of NGOs that are periodically chipping in to provide food aid, the situation could have been worse than what can be imagined.
Mr Grey noted that the reasons for pushing the climate change agenda rests on a tripod of fundamental factors; that is issues to do with equity in which poor people are the worst affected by climate change and are least able to cope with its effects and yet are least responsible for it.
Examples would include the poorest rural communities in Zimbabwe like Bocha, in Manicaland where rainfall is now consistently falling short for the communities to grow enough to sustain their lives.
The second issue involves tackling the issue as a developmental objective since addressing climate change concerns is one of the Millennium Development Goals that all nations, including Zimbabwe are fighting to achieve by 2015. The third concern is that climate change is now an issue of urgency since its impacts are already being felt by poor people around Zimbabwe through increasing frequency and severity of droughts, floods, wildfires.
Speaking at the same occassion, National Climate Change Coordinator Mr Washington Zhakata said statistics show that Southern Africa is likely to experience a temperature rise ranging from two degrees Celsius to four degrees Celsius as a result of doubling carbon dioxide in the next century; rainfall is expected to decrease by 10 percent to 15 percent in some areas, and increase by similar percentage in others.
With this realisation, the Government has already showed its determination to protect its citizens from the impacts of climate change through not only ratifying various international conventions on climate change but also set up domestic mechanisms meant to deal with the crisis. Among them is the formation of the National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS).
In this process, The Institute of Environmental Studies (IES) was contracted by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Management to develop this strategy. The institute will be to review past and current climatic trends in Zimbabwe as well as future climate scenarios up to 2030 and beyond, reviewing national climate change initiatives to date as well as undertaking a comprehensive review of past and ongoing climate change mitigation and adaptation activities in various sectors of Zimbabwe among other roles.
This is commensurate with the dictates of Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of May 1992 and Article 10 (e) of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for governments to educate, empower and engage all stakeholders and major groups on policies relating to climate change.
The UNFCCC was an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) informally known as the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June in 1992 and the objective of the summit was to find mechanisms to stabilise greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. This convention was revisited this year at the Rio + 20 summit that was held to assess the progress made so far.
In Zimbabwe, various NGOs and pressure groups continue to advance the agenda pushing forward for awareness raising as well as carrying advocacy work to make sure that climate change is mainstreamed in the developmental agenda of the nation.
Among the initiatives includes the adoption of the REDD+ concept which aims for “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation” and the need to enhance greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by forests and the need to provide positive incentives for such actions. Considering the ever-increasing cases of veld fires and massive destruction of the green land in Zimbabwe, the REDD concept is of particular importance to Zimbabwe as well.
At the same time, Regional Environment Organisation (ZERO) also came up with the Local Options for Communities to Adapt and Technologies to Enhance Capacity (LOCATE) as a framework that suggests a systematic approach for designing community based adaptation to climate change based on SSNAPP (South South North Adaptation Project Protocol). It advocates context specificity of adaptation and designing community-based adaptation to climate change and how to take benefits for adaptation to climate change among other fundamentals.
With all these ideas fused together, stakeholders are showing commitment to address climate change issues and this should trickle down to individual level to make a better world that is safe from the adverse effects of climate change.
While various factors are being blamed for the deteriorating food security in the country, it is more than obvious that climate change is the major culprit that has been doing the damage to the Zimbabwean societies and beyond. According to the ZimVac report, some of the factors that have been put forward include erratic rainfall and dry spells, limited access to agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, a reduction in the planted area, poor farming practices and inadequate crop diversification.
l Jephiter Tsamwi can be contacted on [email protected] or 0733854681
Online Reporter