Govt launches US$1.2m climate change prog

By Nesia Mhaka

The Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry has launched an initiative to strengthen institutional and technical capacities for enhanced transparency under the Paris Agreement.
Dubbed, capacity building initiative for transparency (CBIT), the project is being funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the delivery partner while the Government of Zimbabwe through its climate change management department is the implementing entity.
CBIT aims to strengthen institutions as well as coordinate, manage and implement climate transparency activities in line with national priorities.
In 1992, countries endorsed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a framework for international cooperation to combat climate change.
In 2015, the Paris Agreement was endorsed and it builds on the work undertaken under the UNFCCC, charting a new course of global action to combat climate change. Zimbabwe is a Party to both the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.
By being a party to the Paris Agreement, Zimbabwe needs to provide the necessary information to track progress towards implementing and achieving nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The country also needs to demonstrate good practices, and highlight needs and gaps to provide inputs to the five-yearly Global Stock-take. The Paris Agreement requested the GEF to support the establishment and operation of the CBIT to assist developing countries in meeting the enhanced transparency requirements of the agreement in both the pre and post-2020 period.
Speaking at the inception workshop of CBIT in Harare last week, Mr Washington Zhakata of the climate change management department, said tackling the climate change challenge requires new ways of thinking, new approaches to development and new partnerships across sectors, nations and societies.
“Climate change is a serious problem that we are facing today and it needs joint various techniques to tackle it. This initiative, the CBIT, will enable countries to establish or strengthen their in-house capacity to track progress on national commitments made under the Paris Agreement, and also to produce more comprehensive and accurate reports capturing their implementation in the medium to long-term.
“The CBIT also supports countries to build capacity to enhance their level of ambition under the Paris Agreement, including by enhancing capacities for the generation of more accurate and updated data on emissions in all sectors, as well as in the impacts of adaptation measures in increasing resilience of communities and ecosystems,” he said.
Mr Zhakata said as a country there is need to build people’s capacity by conducting training of stakeholders in the collection and management of GHG and related data.
“There is need to strengthen our capacity by conducting training of personnel in the collection and management of GHGs and related data, including data interpretation, storage and updating of databases.
“The use of data and tools for independent monitoring, reporting and verification requires skilled professionals that are capable of interpreting data for national purposes.
“Currently there are no ready-to-use datasets for such national level comparisons in Zimbabwe, and yet the country needs to account for anthropogenic emissions and removals from key sectors such as energy, waste, IPPU and AFOLU sectors, in a manner that promotes environmental integrity, transparency, accuracy, completeness, comparability and consistency.”
Speaking at the same event CBIT technical focal person Mr Tatenda Mutasa said the CBIT project will support Zimbabwe to transition and comply with the MPGs for the ETF.
“The project will support the Government on integrating knowledge from transparency initiatives into national policy and decision-making; and also offer assistance with deployment and enhancement of information and knowledge management structure to meet Article 13 needs.
“The initiative also aims to develop tools and protocols for the GHG inventory elaboration, assess needs and gaps concerning tools, protocols and equipment as well as procurement and running of appropriate equipment for data collection and processing.” Nhau/Indaba