The Sunday Mail
Rangu Nyamurundira
President Robert Mugabe signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, committing Zimbabwe to remedying climate change by reducing carbon emissions and effectively limiting global temperature.
In his statement following the signing, President Mugabe specified that Zimbabwe welcomed the climate change agreement as a stepping stone towards tangible action in addressing the climate change challenge facing the world.
President Mugabe took the opportunity to stress the stark reality of climate change which is currently causing Zimbabwe and many countries in the Southern Africa region to suffer from the worst drought in over 35 years, which drought has compounded the damage to people’s livelihoods.
President Mugabe outlined Zimbabwe’s programme, whose broad scope “will support enhanced climate action towards climate resilience and a low carbon development pathway”. It is a commitment to reduce Zimbabwe’s greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent by 2020.
As it turns out Zimbabweans, specifically our local communities, have already embraced and weighed in behind the President’s commitment.
Thanks to the consistency and vision of President Mugabe’s call for the judicious exploitation of our natural resources, Zimbabwe’s heeding local communities have, in retrospect, been supporting their President’s commitment to have Zimbabwe contribute to remedying climate change.
Faced with the reality of climate change induced drought threatening their livelihoods our local communities have embraced an initiative of judiciously exploiting their resources to generate carbon credits critical to off-setting carbon emissions, and in a manner that will generate the communities economic return.
The Kariba REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) project is enabling our local communities, currently in the four districts of Hurungwe, Binga, Nyaminyami and Mbire, to judiciously exploit, through conservation, their forest resource covering 785 000 hectares.
Zimbabwe’s local communities are setting precedent of a community-driven climate change initiative that remedies global warming while sustaining their efforts against climate change by effectively addressing their empowerment and development needs.
The most critical thing Government must now realise, moreso following President Mugabe’s signing of the Paris Climate Agreement, is that through the Kariba Redd+ project our communities are effectively transforming and branding Zimbabwe into a “carbon neutral destination”.
Minister of Tourism, Honourable Walter Mzembi, must surely like such an initiative that will most certainly attract more travellers to his environmentally sensitive tourism sector. Kariba REDD+is internationally certified, being registered according to the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Community, Climate and Biodiversity Standard (CCBS) at Gold Level and validated under a “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)” scheme.
It is Zimbabwe’s first registered carbon project and the world’s largest active community REDD project.
According to the United Nations REDD programme, REDD is “an effort to create financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low carbon paths to sustainable development”.
Zimbabwe is at the brink of setting world precedent on a project that will remedy the threat of global warming while quarantining socio-economic livelihoods of participating communities. Government and the private sector should be embracing and supporting the sustainability of the Kariba Redd+ project.
Yet the sustainability of the Kariba Redd+, Zimbabwe’s sell to a world grappling with climate change, is under threat because no value is being placed on the efforts of our communities that are judiciously exploiting their tree resources.
The private sector, a significant contributor to pollution and global warming, is a strategic and critical partner to ensuring socio-economic value for communities judiciously exploiting their tree resources, thereby sustaining such global warming intervention by Zimbabwe’s local communities. UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, defined the critical role businesses must play in the fight against climate change during his opening remarks to the World Business Summit on Climate Change, in Copenhagen, Denmark, way back in May 2009.
He stated that: “Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. I also believe it is the most potent game changer for business over the next century. It is an opportunity we must seize. I want to challenge you. I want to see you in the vanguard of an unprecedented effort to retool the global economy into one that is cleaner, greener and more sustainable.” Zimbabwe’s local communities have led the way. It is now for business to follow and partner them while Government creates the enabling environment. Already businesses can pursue “socially and economically desirable objectives” allowed within the indigenisation and empowerment framework, which objectives will empower local communities judiciously exploiting their tree resources.
Ultimately business can acquire those carbon credits being generated by our local communities, with participating businesses effectively offset local and global carbon emissions. Zimbabwe’s businesses will generate international good will and recognition for directly contributing to the fight against global warming.
By acquiring such carbon credits businesses can ensure significant “local content” of their revenue, in line with enunciations by President Mugabe in his Presidential Statement to Clarify the Government position on the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Policy.
The Kariba Redd+ project is one significant pathway towards fulfilling President’s Mugabe’s commitment that Zimbabwe reduces our greenhouse emissions by 33 percent by 2020. We only need to support our local communities already generating internationally certified carbon credits that will offset our carbon emissions as a nation. Already, the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board has established the Carbon Neutral Empowerment Fuel (CNEF) initiative, under the theme “Driving Economic Empowerment, Development and Protecting our Environment”.
This CNEF initiative enables businesses to support and empower local communities judiciously exploiting their tree resources and thereby guarantee alternative socio-economic livelihoods to communities in drought prone areas.
Most certainly the benefit for Zimbabwe will go beyond the participating communities, to a national level. One simple example being the impact on tourism when Zimbabwe effectively becomes recognised by global travellers as an internationally certified “Carbon Neutral Destination”.
◆ Rangu Nyamurundira is a lawyer and indigenisation and economic empowerment consultant. He is also the director of the Carbon Neutral Empowerment Fuel initiative.
