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Michael Tome Business Reporter
EXPERTS on climate change adaptation have implored responsible authorities to speed up adoption of renewable energy to mitigate the negative impact of global warming.
This came up at the Financing Climate Change adaptation conference hosted by the Business Weekly in partnership with the Institute of Chartered Account Zimbabwe (ICAZ) and Financial Markets Indaba in Harare on Wednesday.
The indaba sought to enlighten companies on the urgent need to adopt renewable energy as well as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices which can attract international capital into local companies.
The Zimbabwean Government’s policy on renewables is to have capacity to generate about 2 000 megawatts by 2030 a position the country also presented at the just ended 26th Conference of Parties (COP 26).
The arrangement translates to the deployment of around 250-300 megawatt plants of renewable energy per year.
However, the high cost of hydro and solar power generation plants has remained a major stumbling block in the establishment and provision of renewable energy in the country.
Addressing delegates at the symposium Victor Utedzi, the director of African Transmission Corporation said for the country to meet some of the outcomes of COP26, which entails the establishment of small hydropower plants, PV solar and wind plants, it needs to be substantial. He called on local financiers to take the opportunity to fill in the renewable energy gap, which has potential for returns in the long run.
He bemoaned the slow pace in the implementation of renewable energy projects in the last five years on both the Government and private players alike.
“The plan is there and it is noble but 2000 MW we certainly cannot do it in terms of financial commitments, if we are talking about 250 -300 MW annually, then we will be looking at close to US$200-US$300 million dollars per year.
“Right now as a country, we have barely managed 20-50 megawatts per year in the last 5 years, from renewables like PV solar in particular. We are barely scratching the surface we have got much to do in order to meet our own commitments and commitments we have made to the global community,” said Victor Utedzi
He added should be done to raise capital for the renewable energy projects, further stressing that the locals’ capacity to finance renewable energy plants was limited. As such, he said the Government needed to create policies that made it attractive for international investors to chip in with their capital for the projects.
“More needs to be done in order to enable investment to take place, there is a limitation according to what the domestic market can do on its own to raise finance.
“We will probably be able to finance maybe a maximum of about 20–50 megawatts but not more than 100 MW in a year, we have got to do a bit more in order to create an environment that would enable us to also attract foreign investment into the power sector, into the renewable energy sector.
“The interest is there, the market is there, the commitment is there but there is a bit more we can do on macro-level in order to attract Foreign Direct Investment to partner the domestic market otherwise we will not be able to achieve our intended objectives,” added Mr Utedzi.
Maxwell Chikumbutso of the Saith Group said local authorities had been slow on adopting renewable energy products but were however fast catching up in terms of policy direction and a lot has started showing on the implementation side.
“The government is starting to realise now the urgency of implementing the climate adaptation measures, For instance on the issue of electric cars, when you look at South Africa it launched its first electric car about 10 years ago but here in Zimbabwe it was only introduced last year by a certain company so you can see that we have been delaying,
“Those are some of the products that we were supposed to start using in Zimbabwe in the transport sector and it will significantly reduce emissions.
“To say the least, the government is now trying, I think they have put it into consideration that something has to be done,” said Mr Chikumbutso.
The Financing Climate Change Adaptation conference came a few months after the United Nations Framework on Climate Change’s (UNFCC) 26th Conference of Parties (COP 26) held in Glasgow Scotland in November last year.
The Conference of Parties 2021 deliberated on issues that intended to attain global net-zero emissions consensus by 2050 which entailed keeping temperature goal not exceeding 1,5 degrees Celsius.
It also intended to mobilise a climate financing fund of up to US$100 billion per year for access by developing country parties.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the worldwide arrangement and has set its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions per capita to 40 percent up from 33 percent in 2015.
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