Namibia footing a climate change bill of N$400 billion in coming years
12 March 2018
Remember
the Paris Agreement? The one the USA pulled out of? Each country should come up
with their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC). Namibia has
done hers, and the implementation of our plan will cost about NAD 400 billion
until 2030. It goes without question that most of this money, 90% in fact, will
(have to) be sourced from outside sources.
Dirty global development is costing us this much. Can you imagine how much it
is costing the entire world, if just our country has a bill this big? Somehow,
in our global economic growth plans, these bills are not subtracted from the
'growth in wealth'.
Namibia has signed an MoU with the Bank of Southern Africa to access larger
amounts of financing from the Green Climate Fund. The only accredited institution
(so far) in Namibia is the Environmental Investment Fund, which can only access
limited funding, and so to mobilise larger amounts, we have to connect with
accredited institutions who have that kind of access. Our Minister of
Environment, Pohamba Shifeta, said that this MoU would allow Namibia to
mobilise the kind of financing that we need to enhance climate resilience and
tap into mitigation opportunities.
Climate change, despite the (very scary) cognitive dissonance and resulting
denial by us masses, is one of the (if not the) greatest challenges of our
time. None of us will be able to escape it. You think the rain this year is
bad, but hope it will be better next year? This is the new normal. And it is
systemic. It is not just a 'weather' thing. Your food, your water, your day to
day finances, your relationships, employment - everything will be
affected. If you and I don't pull together as a global community today to
make the changes we can, things will get much worse. But if we do pull together
in time, we can strive to build a better world. You choose which one you want
to be part of.
Image credit: www.iecn-namibia.com