Zim submits INDC, targets 33pc emissions reduction . . . over $90 billion needed to implement plan According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation the country lost 29,5 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation the country lost 29,5 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation the country lost 29,5 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010

Jeffrey Gogo Climate Story
ZIMBABWE last Wednesday submitted its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) to the United Nations, promising to cut energy-linked emissions by 33 percent by 2030 under a business as usual scenario, but not without obligatory rich countries’ financial aid.

The INDCs outline a country’s intended mitigation contribution, adaptation priorities and needs, crucial building blocks for a new global climate deal set to be agreed at Paris in December.

Each of the near 200 members of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the multi-lateral platform seeking to put a halt to climate change’s dangerous impacts, is expected to submit one such plan.

Over 120 countries had published their INDCs by the September 30 deadline for inclusion into a synthesis report that will shape the Paris agreement.

Like everyone else across Africa, Zimbabwe’s emissions reductions are conditional on financial and technological support from industrialised countries, the giant emitters historically responsible for all the world’s existing climate change problems.

The country says it will need more than $55 billion, broken into two tranches, to achieve its mitigation goals in the decade to 2030, covering gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, the mischievous trio.

That figure does not include the $35 billion needed for adaptation, mainly in agriculture, with 23 percent coming through domestic and development agencies’ funding, and the rest through international aid.

In total, implementing Zimbabwe’s INDC will cost $90 billion over a period of 10 years until 2030, the period when a new international climate agreement is expected to come into force.

Much of the mitigation will occur in the energy sector, which accounts for 49 percent of national emissions, recorded this year at 26 700 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e), or an invisible 0,5 percent of world emissions.

Each gigatonne is equal to 1 billion metric tonnes.

Specifically, Zimbabwe targets to avoid a total 17 300 GtCO2e by 2030 through higher thresholds for ethanol blending, boosting solar water heating and increasing the share of hydro-power in the national energy mix.

Combined with enhanced energy efficiency and the refurbishment and electrification of the dilapidated rail network, the country will need the Western industrialised states, under UN mechanisms, to deliver $7,2 billion to achieve the targeted quantified cuts in the first tranche.

Other unquantified mitigation contributions are in coal-bed methane, off-grid solar, REDD+, waste management, improving efficiency and changing the structure of the transport industry and introducing sustainable energies in tobacco curing.

More than $48 billion will be required to bring all those projects to life.

“This is a contribution target subject to…full implementation by developed countries of their commitments relating to finance, technology and capacity pursuant to…the Convention,” says the INDC.

The flexibility in business as usual

It is important to note that unlike other countries that have specific base years against which future emission cuts are benchmarked, Zimbabwe’s intended nationally determined contribution does not tie itself down to that, preferring instead a business as usual (BAU) baseline case.

With BAU, which projects future development patterns to remain unchanged from those in the past, Zimbabwe has created space that drives sustainable economic development now and in the future without absolutely committing to a process that may hinder growth under an uncertain funding model.

The business as usual case is flexible enough to allow the country to develop at a pace it desires, achieving some of its long-term economic and environmental goals with or without international support.

That means Zimbabwe, a net carbon sink whose emissions can easily fail to register on the global radar, will triple its per capita energy emissions to 3,3 tonnes CO2e between now and 2030 under BAU without having to feel bad about it.

Still, the figure will be far below the average 5,1 tonnes CO2e per person emissions in other developing countries, as estimated by the UN’s expert panel on climate change in 2007.

With mitigation, that is to say if international funding is availed to achieve the 33 percent energy emissions reduction targets, the country’s per capita emissions will decline from around 2,5tCO2e in 2020 to 2,2tCO2e by 2030.

Thus, Zimbabwe’s contribution is clearly designed to reassert the country’s right to develop, and develop sustainably, over binding mitigatory commitments.

Achieving the kind of sustainability that measures up with global climate aspirations is dependent on funding from those most responsible for fuelling climate change, industrialised states.

“The country’s main climate change thrust remains adaptation and poverty reduction,” the INDC says.

“However, strategically beneficial mitigation actions present a good opportunity for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time enhancing socio-economic growth and improving livelihoods…”

Further mitigation, adaptation

Zimbabwe’s INDC hopes to sequestrate unquantified amounts of carbon dioxide through its forests, estimated to be covering 15,6 million hectares, or 45 percent of the total land area.

This is a very optimistic outlook, however, unlikely considering the country’s runaway rate of deforestation.

According to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, between 1990 and 2010, Zimbabwe lost 29,5 percent of its forest cover, an average of 327 000 hectares per year.

Deforestation remains a nightmare for authorities, and the battle is seemingly and decidedly being lost, worsened by the ongoing power crisis, forcing thousands of households to return to firewood for energy.

Zimbabwe did not set mitigation targets for agriculture, an employer of two thirds of its 13,1 million people, and the second largest emitting industry after energy at 40 percent of total national emissions.

Instead, targets on agriculture centre on adaptation. Agriculture contributes up to 15 percent of Gross Domestic Product, but in recent decades the sector has seen an escalation in extreme climate events including floods and droughts, yielding massive crop losses, particularly of the maize staple.

The INDC says $35 billion will be needed for adaptation in agriculture during the decade to 2030. International support will account for $26 billion of the requirements. Government will provide the remainder.

Since 2009, Government has spent $900 million of its own money building resilience in the sector.

Coping strategies in agriculture 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, according to the INDC.

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 INDC sets out at $1,5 billion the amount required to help the energy sector adapt, with special attention on hydro-power.

To achieve this, Government will provide a fifth of the funding requirements and the remainder the UN mechanisms should fund.

The 750 megawatts Kariba hydro-electric power station is currently operating at 63 percent of capacity due to climate change-induced reduced water levels in the Kariba dam.

The development has thrown Zimbabwe into an historic darkness. Thousands of homes are without power for up to 18 hours per day.

God is faithful.

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