Zambia Signs Bilateral Agreements to Support the Energy Sector

 

November 19, 2024 

VIOLET MENGO

Lusaka: THE 29^th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) has seen Zambia witnessed two landmark events towards article six cooperation of the Paris Agreement and continued action towards climate change.

Minister of Green Economy and Environment (MGEE) signed bilateral agreements with Norway and Sweden at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan under its current engagement with buyer countries for carbon credits.

On November 16, 2024, Government signed a bilateral agreement for Article 6 Cooperative Approaches with Norway.

Mike Mposha (left) with Mr Sandvik

The agreement was signed by Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment Mr Tore Onshuus Sandvik and Zambia’s Minister of Green Economy and Environment, Mike Mposha.

The event was graced by other officials from both parties and supporting intergovernmental agencies at a momentous occasion that signifies cooperation towards climate action, emission reduction and achieving of global targets.

Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment, Mr Sandvik said that Norway believes cooperation under Article 6 can provide much needed finance for green investments in developing countries.

“Today, our countries are taking a major leap forward, paving the way for green investments in Zambia and a contribution to global mitigation ambitions,” he said.

Mr Mposha, the event was as a culmination of our respective preparations and efforts to ensure that we reach this milestone agreement.

On November 18, 2024 Government represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment, Dr Douty Chibamba signed a bilateral agreement with Sweden’s Swedish Energy Agency.

The event came after months of engagement with Sweden, including the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in August 2024 in Lusaka.

Zambia and Sweden

 The Swedish Energy Agency is one of Sweden’s   key expert government agencies which   promotes energy efficiency measures and   investments in renewable energy technologies   and is mandated to implement climate   cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris   Agreement.

 Acting Director General of the Swedish Energy   Agency Caroline Asserup, who signed on behalf   of the government of Sweden said “This   bilateral cooperation agreement is an important   step towards establishing concrete climate   projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions,   contribute to sustainable development and help   raise climate ambition in both Sweden and Zambia. We are pleased to further strengthen the cooperation between our two countries.” 

Mr Mposha, was one of the many dignitaries attending the signing ceremony.

He said “Our government is serious about participating in international carbon markets as an important avenue to achieve our nationally determined contributions, generate new carbon finance revenue streams, which will increase the country’s mitigation ambition and contribute to the sustainable development of our nation.”

The minister acknowledged both the Norwegian and the Swedish governments for their continued commitment towards climate action.

He further added that signing of the bilateral agreements would help Zambia as it opens up opportunities for public and private sector energy project developers to access carbon finance and pursue renewable energy power generation.

Both events were supported by the Supporting Preparedness for Article 6 Cooperation (SPAR6C) Program, led by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) with GFA Consulting Group and UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre as the leading delivery partners in Zambia.

SPAR6C aims to catalyze investment in greenhouse emissions reductions by supporting its implementation countries to enable transactions of Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs) as allowed under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

Over the past two years, Zambia has progressed in the development of its carbon market framework and is in the process of developing first mitigation activities with the support of SPAR6C.

The Paris Agreement, signed by 197 countries in 2015, represents a historic global effort to combat climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Article 6 of the Paris agreement is the cornerstone for international cooperation, fostering global carbon market mechanisms that enable countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while fostering sustainable development.

Zambia is currently facing an energy deficit due to a combination of factors including a growing demand for electricity and limited investments in the energy sector.

These factors coupled with a severe drought and high dependence on hydropower, have drastically affected the capacity of its hydroelectric power plants to generate sufficient power to support economic growth.

Government, through the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment, have been seeking alternatives and exploring renewable energy and energy efficiency options to support the country’s efforts in power generation and low carbon power sector development.

November 14, 2024

VIOLET MENGO

Lusaka

THE 29th edition of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) opened on November 12, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan under the theme; “In solidarity for a Green World.”

Delegates have gathered for COP29, which has been dubbed the “Finance COP” due to its sharp focus on securing a robust climate finance agreement—the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), aimed at addressing the urgent need for climate adaptation and driving a global phase – out of fossil fuels including oil and gas, a backbone of many developed countries.

Climate finance, according to the UNFCCC, refers to local, national or transnational financing, drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that aimed at addressing climate change.

The Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement call for financial assistance from Parties with more financial resources to those that are less endowed and more vulnerable.

For the African continent, COP29 is quite significant in a number of ways including the need for the realisation of the much-needed finance for adaptation and mitigation.

The African continent, just like other developing countries, look to COP29 to yield the desired finance from the developed countries for climate action.

When the African Heads of State and Governments gathered for the inaugural Africa Climate Summit (ACS) in Nairobi, Kenya from September 4-6, 2023, the leaders called upon the global community to act with urgency in reducing emissions, fulfilling its obligations, honouring past promises, and supporting the continent in addressing climate change.

The leaders called for the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage fund as agreed at COP27 and resolved for a measurable Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) with indicators and targets to enable assessment of progress against negative impacts of climate change.

Some delegates

 
 Heads of State and Government also called for the strengthening     of    early warning systems and climate information services, as   well as   taking early action to protect lives, livelihoods and assets   and    inform long-term decision-making related to climate change   risks.

 The call was with the understanding that many African countries   face disproportionate burdens and risks arising from climate   change  related unpredictable weather events and patterns including prolonged droughts, devastating floods, out of season storms and wildfires, which cause massive humanitarian crises with detrimental impacts on economies, health, education, peace and security.

A Researcher on climate finance and co-leads Global finance and Investments Areas at the Alliance of Bioversity International and International Centre for Tropical Agriculture’s Centre action, Pedro Chilambe, shares that the NCQG, which will be discussed at COP29 aims to re-establish and update the 100 billion which was set in Copenhagen in 2009 for developing countries.

Chilambe

“COP29 is a very important opportunity to guarantee that climate finance helps countries to achieve the targets both for mitigation and adaptation. This needs to be a well voiced push for grants financing to be the pillar of this goal. We have over 30 percent of climate finance coming in the form of loans,” Mr Chilambe says.

 He explains that one of the biggest challenges has been to accessing adaptation finance, and points out that a lot needs to be done to guarantee that countries are capacitated to access climate finance including in form of grant based financial instruments and mechanisms.

“Standardising the processes will be ideal so that we do not need to build different expertise to be able to access each one of the mechanisms but also to simplify the processes because we find ourselves having to do so much to access funding climate finance.

He asserts that the process should not be complex to access the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for example, as it is today.

“It is not just the complexity in terms of what is required in the processes, it is also the amount of investment needed to access the investments. To develop a GCF, proposal, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars that need to be invested for a country to access the funding,” he said.

He disclosed that most of the project preparatory facilities that exist, ranges between 100, 000 to almost a million for countries to be able to get one proposal to move forward.

From the African Union perspective, one of the key issues that needs to be done at COP29 is for developed countries to honour the Copenhagen commitment.

Africa Union (AU) One Health Data Alliance, Mary Kariuki is of the view that the commitment should be honoured so that the African continent that is suffering most of the impacts and effects of climate change can mitigate and adapt.

“We need to ask ourselves what mitigation and adaptation action we are putting in place because livestock on Africa are well adapted to our climate and we are really not contributing so much to the green gas emissions, only about four percent,” she said.

Her call is for African Governments to push the agenda and ensure there is international commitment towards what was agreed in the past.

For Zambia, the Minister of Green Economy and Environment, Mike Mposha is leading the delegation of climate change experts and is very optimistic of a good ending of the climate negotiations.

Mr Mposha who, on November 12, had a bilateral meeting with the Executive Director of the Loss and Damage Fund, Dr Ibrahim Cheikh Diong, said meeting discussed among other issues, Zambia’s nomination to host the fund board meeting in 2026, which will let Zambia become the first host the fund board meeting in Africa.

Dr Diong was particularly impressed with Zambia’s instrumental role played in the in the growth of the loss and damage fund. 

 

November 13, 2024

VIOLET MENGO

Lusaka        

THE African Group of Negotiators (AGN) has re-affirmed its position, highlighting adaptation and climate finance as its top priorities at the 29th session of the Conference of Parties (COP29) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which opened on Tuesday.

In keeping with the conference theme: ‘In solidarity for a Green World,’ AGN Chair, Ali Mohamed has underscored the importance of adaptation and climate finance, pointing out that the group has a clear mandate from its leaders to ensure fruitful outcomes on the two agenda items, in solidarity with the continent’s 1.4 billion people.

“We will be firm for COP29 to deliver on climate finance and adaptation, regardless of the circumstances surrounding our participation and who we are as a group,” said Ambassador Mohamed.

“We are here, representing the aspirations of 1.4 billion Africans, and we will ensure that we don’t fail. We have a clear mandate from our leaders that the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate finance must align with actual transition costs faced by developing nations, as the current frameworks substantially underestimate the capital required for nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) implementation across the continent.”

With a proposed quantum of US$1.3 trillion as the minimum annual threshold for climate finance, the African Group has continued to stress the importance of delivering climate resources through concessional instruments and grants, as current market-rate mechanisms have proven wholly insufficient for addressing the scale of adaptation and loss and damage responses required across Africa.

“For us in Africa, adaptation means agriculture support, resilient water infrastructure, and universal health coverage for all, amidst an increased climate-induced disease burden, among other necessary development support. We are therefore not treating our development needs as a separate subject from climate adaptation, which cuts across all our development needs in key sectors,” emphasized
the AGN Chair.

AGN Chair Ambassador Mohamed

Ambassador Mohamed highlighted the urgent need for enhanced climate financing and inclusion of health within the UNFCCC space, in a more structured way.

“Africa group is alive to the urgent need for enhanced climate financing support, with particular emphasis on grant-based and other non-debt burdening financing models for the health sector in Africa. We believe it is also about time for the health sector's inclusion and active participation within the UNFCCC space, in a more structured way,” said Ambassador Mohamed.

Other priority areas for the African group include the critical need for formal recognition of Africa's special circumstances under the Paris Agreement, highlighting the asymmetry between the continent's minimal emissions (four percent of global emissions) and disproportionate vulnerability to climate impacts, mainly seen in agriculture, water, energy and health sectors and the push for the Just Transition work programme to reflect Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) principles in its operational frameworks.

Africa is also calling for the operationalisation of the fund for Loss and Damage to support African countries in coping with the irreversible impacts of climate change and aid in the recovery of affected communities and finalisation of rules for carbon markets that are robust and deliver environmental integrity and the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement.