daniel chigunwe
Dr Masimba Mavaza
Zimbabweans all over United Kingdom are waiting with anticipation and glorified excitement for President Mnangagwa’s walk through the glass gates into Scotland.
His steps in Glasgow will symbolise economic freedom, and confirming the call that Zimbabwe is open for business.
This will be setting off joyous celebrations as Zimbabweans all over the UK will welcome their leader.
“Comrade Mnangagwa will be majestically representing Zimbabwe at the COP26 conference to be held in Glasgow Scotland next week.
His visit will be a sign of peace, democracy and freedom for all, and an invitation to all who would want to see God’s jewel called Zimbabwe.
The president will emphatically reaffirm his commitment to the climate change campaign and will call for increased pressure to end illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.
At this unique meeting, Zimbabwe will stand side by side with President Mnangagwa and other leaders of the world and dignitaries’ march into the second capital city of Scotland to a fanfare of trumpets and crashing cymbals.
The climate change conference known as COP26, being held in Glasgow, Scotland will be attended by the who is who of the world to find ways of healing the earth.
The United Nations climate summit, which will take place this November, is widely regarded as the planet’s last best chance at keeping global warming below the levels that scientists warn will have catastrophic consequences for life on earth.
After a summer of record-setting heat waves, hurricanes and forest fires, public concern about climate change has reached an all-time high, leading into the UN Climate Change Conference which gets underway tomorrow.
The outcome of this summit may be the single most important factor in determining whether humanity suffers the worst consequences of climate change.
This conference in Glasgow is key to knowing what the future may hold for life on earth.
Climate change is the biggest threat we face. If we don’t tackle it, the consequences are grim.
We can tackle it and we are holding hands as one family to make the world a better place.
The three most important things we can do are to stop the activities that cause it; enhance our resilience to its effects; and talk about it.
President Mnangagwa in his wisdom appreciates that he is the custodian of this earth and he must act to the best interest of the earth.
To that end, he joins the world in this most anticipated conference.
The world has realised that climate change isn’t just words. It is a real issue. And the man-made climate change is very scary.
The rise in global temperatures over the last several decades is a matter of public record.
There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that it can only be explained by one thing: the rise in greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities.
Some people say that climate change is natural and we shouldn’t worry. The answer to that is that we have indeed had naturally-occurring climate change since the Earth was formed.
But none of the natural causes of climate variation, from the Sun’s output, the tilt of the Earth, volcanic activity or emissions from rotting vegetation, can account for the warming we observe today.
There is only one thing that can: the emissions from fossil fuels caused by human activities over the last 200 years.
The concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere have increased by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
It’s not as bad as you think – it’s worse.
Here’s another inconvenient truth. Not only is global warming happening, it may be speeding up. The 20 warmest years on record have all come since 1995. The five warmest years have all been in this decade, the 2010s. 2016 was the hottest year since records began and who knows what comes next.
Zimbabwe is a leading regional player in sustainable environmental and natural resources management for socio-economic development.
The country has a ministry dedicated to climate change. The ministry is there to plan, research and develop environmental and natural resources policies and legislation which promote the adoption of appropriate and proven natural resources management techniques and profitable use of these resources on a sustainable basis.
This promotes stakeholder and public participation in integrated programmes of environmental, forestry and wildlife management.
President Mnangagwa has since called upon every business, every investor, every citizen to play their part is preserving what is left of the world.
It took long for us to realise that we are destroying our own heritage. We can’t undo the mistakes of the past. But this generation of political and business leaders, this generation of conscious citizens, can make things right.
This generation can make the systemic changes that will stop the planet warming, help everyone adapt to the new conditions and create a world of peace, prosperity and equity.
Climate change is a reality and it has dawn on us much faster than all scenarios predicted.
It has become so fast than the way Covid-19 spread. Climate change is not just an environmental issue, as too many people still believe. It is an all-encompassing threat, to health, to agriculture, to peace and security, to the very ground millions of people live on, to the global economy.
To that end, the Government of Zimbabwe is committed to dealing with issues of the environment and natural resources.
As a leader in this field, the Zimbabwean government created the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Hospitality Industry to promote best practices in environmental and natural resources management.
The main focus of the Ministry is to ensure sustainable use of the country’s natural resources for the benefit of all Zimbabweans with a focus to create a better world.
Zimbabwe is the germ of the natural world which is blessed with considerable natural resources that serve as a cornerstone for economic development and wealth creation.
The country is alive to the fact that a clean world brings a better environment. The clean environment cuts across most sectors of society and the economy, each feeds in the other.
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The environment cuts across most sectors of society and the economy, directly and indirectly affecting their functioning by providing a range of goods and services.
The country’s GDP is derived from resource based sectors like agriculture, energy, mining, tourism, forestry and water.
Economic activity from these sectors, however, has long term direct and indirect negative environmental impacts.
Many of these problems are due to patterns of consumption of natural resources in which the rates of extraction exceed the regenerative capacity of the resources.
We are now at a point where even animals have accepted this reality.
Countries are now experiencing storms, droughts, unprecedented famine and rising floods and sea levels, bleak signs of what we are facing.
Large regions will become uninhabitable because they will be either flooded or get hardly any rain water.
Developing countries are going to suffer disproportionately if the global community continues the game that almost everybody waits for someone else to take action.
Climate change refers to the effects of global warming, a worldwide average temperature increase of 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) recorded since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century.
As humans burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which trap heat, rise. The effects of this, such as sea-level rise and more extreme weather, have already begun.
If left unchecked, greenhouse gas emissions will lead to several more degrees of warming with devastating results for people in vulnerable areas.
So, all the roads now lead to Glasgow where almost every country in the world, 197 nations in total, will go to try to negotiate an updated agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was created in 1992.
There has been a Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC, or COP, every year since 1995.
The first agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions was the Kyoto Protocol, struck in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan. (Kyoto was COP3.)
Most years, the COP is dedicated to discussing the mundane details of implementation of the existing agreements, but every five or six years, there is a major conference to try to forge an updated agreement.
The last agreement was signed in 2015, in Paris.
Countries agreed to re-adjourn in five years to update the agreement to make it stronger. Last year, however, it was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Mnangagwa will be joined by scores of other leaders and several ministers and permanent secretaries and top government officials.
Some unpatriotic people have been criticising the President for leading a team of over 20 delegates, while the United States is bringing over 200 officials.
People like Hopewell Chin’ono will never see the United States as wrong because he is sworn to demonise Zimbabwe.
While the actual negotiations are conducted by high-level government officials, like a country’s environment minister, many heads of state, including US President Biden, will also show up to make speeches.
The US delegation is being led by former Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House has announced plans to bring several current members of the Cabinet, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as well as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Reagan and their personnel.
Queen Elizabeth II had also planned to attend, but due to health reasons, she will give a televised recorded speech.
This is a very important meeting and the Diaspora is privileged to be present.
The delegates will likely be outnumbered by the legions who come to influence them.
Corporations and advocacy groups will set up shop in a giant pavilion on the inside and host panels and press conferences, while environmental activists, many of them young, are planning rallies, marches and other events near the conference.
Hundreds of thousands of people will be dancing and jogging through the streets of Glasgow rejoicing at the historical visit of the historical leader to the historical city of Glasgow.
Most countries will set out their plans to reduce emissions before the summit starts, so we should get a sense of whether we are on track beforehand.
Tens of thousands of campaigners and businesses will also be there to hold events and network. Extinction Rebellion, for example, are calling for an immediate end to the use of fossil fuels.
At the end of the conference, some form of declaration is expected.
Every country will be required to sign up and it could include specific commitments.
The Diaspora awaits the thunderous arrival of President Mnangagwa in Scotland.
Online Reporter