Green economy is the future

The Minister of Environment and Tourism will submit the first two of six projects to the Green Climate Fund Board next week in South Korea. The other projects will be presented later in the year as part of the global US$100 billion Green Climate Fund. Hon. Phohamba Shifeta said, speaking on the Climate Change Conference and the Convention to Combat Desertification held last year in Paris.
All funds for the projects, the Climate Resilience of Agriculture in three of the vulnerable extreme northern crop-growing regions and the power to adapt projects that will create Climate-Change Resilient Livelihoods through Community-Based Natural Resource Management projects will be channelled through the Environmental Investment Fund.
The Green Climate Fund is expected to become the main global fund for climate change finance. Ministry of Environment and Tourism official, Paulus Ashili, speaking to the Economist said that more projects are in the pipeline and submission to the Green Climate Fund will be done in due course.
Namibia has become more advanced with regard to identifying national targets and prioritising the mitigating and adaption to climate change. Including implementing the concept of land degradation neutrality, together with 14 other countries.
Ashili said the Green Climate Fund is established to support initiatives from governments in developing countries to implement projects in the areas of adaptation and mitigation. “The fund will also finance projects and programs in the public and private sectors that contribute towards achieving the fund’s eight focus areas.”
The Minister of Environment and Tourism already launched phase I of this project with targets set in place for Namibia to be land degradation neutral by 2040. Phase II of this project, which will be implemented on-the-ground interventions, which begun in February, Shifeta said.
Part of the Paris Agreement requires member states to set Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the fund. Which Shifeta developed and submitted as part of a first Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) last year.
Hope is high to reduce the country’s Greenhouse Gas emissions by 89% of the projected emissions by 2030. This involves a range of strategic targets and actions to reduce emissions in sectors such as energy as the country moves towards renewable energy and cleaner transport, the adoption of cleaner technologies in industrial production and processes.
The recycling of municipal solid waste and waste-water sludge will also be included as part of quadrennial progressive reports on targets.
“This will have a major impact on the way business is done across the world and I believe we are now poised for massive investment into technologies linked to renewable energy, sustainable transportation systems, water supply and management and alternative approaches to waste management” Shifeta said.