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The Government projects that $9,9 million will be needed to tackle climate change and of this $5,5 billion will be needed for water and agriculture sectors

Jeffrey Gogo Climate Story
Economic and social sectors will require $9,9 billion in the next five to 10 years to cope with climate change according to a financial breakdown released by the Government. This figure has been thrown around at various climate change fora for a long time. We knew already how big it was. What’s of key interest is how that money will be deployed, to what effect, and from where it shall be sourced.

The action plan pays special attention to the water and agriculture sectors. Combined, the two sectors will require $5,5 billion to cope, or 55 percent of the total estimated national adaptation spending, says the National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS).

The high polluting transport industry will need $1,1 billion; technology transfer $574 million; industry and commerce $528 and disaster risk reduction and management $519 million.

Adaptation in mining, tourism, energy and waste management is estimated at a combined $1,1 billion.

The remainder is proposed to help in areas like air pollution, land use and land use change, biodiversity, health, children, the youth, climate change governance and others.

The emphasis on water and agriculture is understandable. The two sectors are highly sensitive to climate change, facing some of the biggest threats from the phenomenon.

Crop output in Zimbabwe is projected to fall by between 30 and 50 percent within the next two decades, in line with yield declines across southern Africa, as water in rivers, dams or lakes fall 50 percent by 2100, according to the Fifth Assessment Report of the UN panel on climate change.

Failures in agriculture will have far reaching economy-wide impacts. The sector accounts for two thirds of national employment, contributes up to 15 percent to GDP and anchors most of the manufacturing taking place in Zimbabwe’s industry.

Any less attention towards building resilience in water and agriculture by the NCCRS would have been criminal!

Apart from adapting, agriculture needs to cut its 22 percent share of carbon emissions of the national total, the second highest after energy at 60 percent.

The NCCRS provided guidance on how Zimbabwe can cope with changing climates, spelling out specific action plans for specific sectors, with implementation time frames, particularly those sectors facing the greatest risks. It is a very comprehensive document by any standard.

In the water sector, strategies for adaptation include strengthening and monitoring of hydro-meteorological networks, regular assessments of surface and underground water and promotion of water use efficiency.

The bulk of the water sector adaptation budget, about $2,5 billion has been earmarked for the development, rehabilitation, maintenance and protection of aboveground and underground water resources.

To do that, Zimbabwe is advised to refurbish existing storage and distribution infrastructure, complete all dams under construction and to build systems that connect the country’s 8 catchment areas, says the NCCRS.

In agriculture, coping strategies are wide-ranging but centre on capacitating farmers and extension workers, switch to drought tolerant crop varieties, strengthening early warning systems and production of indigenous livestock breeds.

Funding nightmare

The financial cost of adapting to climate change isn’t cheap at all. It equals the value of Zimbabwe’s total economic output for a year, and is one and a half times as big as the national annual budget.

In view of the spending limits, expecting Treasury to fund adaptation in any significant way may be stretching hopes too far.

Eyes must be cast elsewhere. The NCCRS says to look to UN agencies, the Global Environment Facility, Bill and Melinda Gates, and others.

To highlight the challenge of internal funding, Zimbabwe laboured two years before completing the consultative processes that produced the final document of the climate change response strategy.

And it was not for lack of expertise. Government could not afford the $400 000 needed to bankroll the project, not a princely sum by any stretch of imagination. Eventually, it had to rope in developmental partners like Comesa and the UN Development Programme.

It took much less time for countries like Zambia, which received similar support to finalise their response strategies.

Government has also cut spending for the environment, water and climate by 44 percent to $52,7 million this year from $93,5 million a year ago.

It is clear, therefore, unless the economy improves, adaptation funding is beyond the existing capacity of Zimbabwe’s constrained national purse.

Authorities must digger into the pockets of those with the money. That may mean adopting a hybrid type of funding model to adaptation; mobilising domestic public and private capital while simultaneously tapping into global funding mechanisms such as those offered under the different arms of the UN.

As I have discussed in previous instalments, there is need to understand the innovative techniques that mobilised investment into the HIV and AIDS crusade, particularly the roles played by Government and the private/NGO sector, from which the climate change sector can learn.

With the current extent of politicking around global climate finance, governments looking for swift solutions shouldn’t be putting too much faith into such mechanisms as the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

It is interesting to note that Zimbabwe’s projected costs for adaptating to climate change are the equivalent of pledges made by rich countries towards capitalising the crucial GCF last November.

The $10 billion pledges represent just a tenth of the total amount of money needed as seed to run the Green Climate Fund, seen as key to helping poor countries adapt.

Now, the scale of the costs to adaptation in Zimbabwe alone should spell the kind of urgency with which industrialised countries needed to react, and live up to the Copenhagen promise of $100 billion per year until 2020.

Parties agreed in the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 that “developed countries shall provide adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity-building to support the implementation of adaptation action in developing countries”

Six years on, the promises remain broken with only a small fraction of the funding released, roughly $30 billion since 2012, for all the world’s poor who are paying for a crime they did not commit.

These failures have created serious divisions between developing and developed countries, threatening to derail international climate negotiations. Adaptation is the overriding priority for Africa.

“Significant financial resources will need to be allocated by the Government treasury; the private sector, green climate funds; bilateral donor and international agencies support; adaptation fund, mitigation financing including Clean Development Mechanism; international, regional and local banks,” suggests the NCCRS.

The cost for mitigating and adapting to climate change in Zimbabwe will not remain static. It is like chasing a moving target. The climate response strategy recommends a periodic five-year review. Any failures to building climate resilience in the country will not be a result of lack of policy.

It will be judged on the actions that Government takes to mobilise funding to implement existing strategies, as espoused in the strategy document.

And, of course, it will have a great deal to do with how and what rich countries are doing to fulfil their funding promises.

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