Coming at the backdrop of the 2022 Alternative Mining Indaba, Green Governance’s April 2022 newsletter features energy transition and related issues in Africa. Also interrogated is the impact of weak disaster risk management on Zimbabwe’s climate adaptation programming. Read on!
The Pursuit of a Just Energy Transition: Africa’s Paradox
Fossil energy is dirty. Its continued use is making an already bad situation worse. That humanity needs to grow its technology beyond reliance on fossil fuels is obvious in the face of the debilitating effects of their contribution to the vagaries of climate change. Industries across the world need urgent decarbonisation and transition to clean energy – and fast! What is under debate are the modalities of the transition. They have to be reasonable. Just too. The concept of a just transition — that the shift to a sustainable economy must be a shared global responsibility, that its benefits must be distributed fairly and that communities should not be worse off as a result — is particularly impor- tant in the African context. Africa is at a crossroads. The continent’s transition away from fossil fuels is fraught with difficulties and there arises the dialogue for a fair and just transition. The continent accounts for just 3.8% of global greenhouse emissions, yet it is bearing the brunt of some of the worst impacts of climate change.
Poor Disaster Risk Management Exposes Zimbabwe’s Institutional Weakness in Dealing with Climate Change
Poor disaster risk management exposes Zimbabwe’s Institutional weakness in dealing with Climate Change Hundreds of homesteads are still patched on steep slopes across Chiman- imani’s mountainous terrain – dangling dangerously in harm’s way. A repeat of a weather event in the magnitude of Cyclone Idai which dumped record rains that triggered mudslides and floods that claimed the lives of over 700 people on March 15, 2019 is certain to be equally devastating. Government, it appears, only moved those at whom the global media had spotlighted – Ngangu and Kopa survivors. This is against increasing incidences of climate induced disasters, notably the South Africa’s recent mudslides that claimed over 400 people last month following unprecedented heavy rains largely affecting shanty towns. The settlement patterns of both regions are strikingly similar.
Read the full newsletter here (4MB PDF)
Source: Green Governance Zimbabwe
