adminJeffrey Gogo Climate Story
ZIMBABWE has started a process leading to the production of the Third National Communication, a key report capturing the country’s climate actions, which will be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the medium term.As implied by the name, this will be the third such report to the UNFCCC since Zimbabwe became a member in 1992 and acceded to the important emission-oriented Kyoto Protocol in 2009. The Second National Communication was produced last year and the Initial National Communication in 1998.
National climate change co-ordinator in the new Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate Mr Washington Zhakata said the TNC builds on the outcomes of its predecessor, the Second National Communication.
It aims to document in a comprehensive manner Zimbabwe’s actions and strategies in mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change, which are essential to fulfulling certain obligatory provisions of the convention for developing countries, also known as Annex II countries.
These actions are largely complementary to those by the most guilty party for fuelling climate change – industrialised nations or Annex I countries – which are mandated under the protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions deeply and in a verifiable way.
“This project will take full consideration of the capacity building needs of Zimbabwe . . . and hence capacity building elements are incorporated in all proposed activities,” Mr Zhakata said in an interview last week impressing the ministry was now huning for a consultant to lead the process.
“Additionally the project aims at increasing the awareness of climate change among the entire citizenry of Zimbabwe. It would also serve to enhance information exchange and co-operation between all stakeholders including Government officials, civic society, non-governmental organisations, academia and the private sector.”
A key decision at the UN annual climate talks a few years ago highlighted the importance of developing and strengthening of institutional, scientific, technical, informational and human capacity of non-Annex I Parties, which is a prerequisite for effective implementation of the Convention.
Low GHG emissions, weak adaptive capacity
Some of the major components of the TNC include a national inventory of the GHG gases as well as an impact analysis and vulnerability assessment of the key sectors of the economy to the adverse impacts of climate change, said Mr Zhakata.
At the last count in 2000, the SNC reports that Zimbabwe produced over 25 000 Gigagrams of carbon dioxide emissions, the most potent global warming-causing gas. Most of the emissions occurred in the energy industry where activities such fuel combustion contribute 68 percent to the national total. Agriculture produced 22,4 percent of CO2, industry 5,2 percent and waste 3,9 percent.
The country went through a bad time computing such data due to poor record keeping by companies and lack of reliable data in other industries. However, Zimbabwe’s CO2 emissions may easily fail to read on the international scale. Over 88 000Gg of carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere that year, trapped by the country’s forests.
These challenges are likely to be eliminated in the TNC owing to a marked improvement in data collection and awareness campaigns being carried out by the ministry, which may produce outcomes much closer to reality.
Said Mr Zhakata: “The industry has started looking at the carbon footprints after being informed of the levels of emissions by sector and what activities could be carried out to reduce emissions.
“Three carbon footprint workshops have been held, two in Harare and one in Bulawayo. The first workshop was a general awareness on the issue and the second one being step-by-step capacity building on how to quantify one’s carbon footprint.”
The Third National Communication will also undertake an analysis of GHG mitigation options and possible measures of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases while advancing sustainable development plans and programmes of Zimbabwe;
Many programmes have now been built or are being built based on the outcomes from previous communication reports. The National Climate Change Response Strategy, which is currently entering its final phases of construction, is one such programme. On completion, the strategy is expected to significantly reorganise Zimbabwe’s current fragmented responses towards the dangerous impacts of climate change.
Among many things, the Second National Communication reinforced that numerous sectors of the economy including agriculture, health, water, human settlements and biodiversity were greatly vulnerable to climate change.
It proposed the adoption of small grains, irrigation development and use of simple water harvesting technologies as adaptive strategies for the sectors of agriculture and water.
A deliberate increase in the number of health centres may be one among many possible adaptive strategies in the health industry, which is threatened with an increase in malaria cases due to rising temperatures.
God is faithful.
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