Unam plans for climate change research

12 March 2010, New Era
URL: http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=9889&sid=903c4ad9066f46c0cfcb10ac6b5977e7

Windhoek:  The University of Namibia (Unam) is considering a series of research projects to respond to priorities set to existing climate change and development policies.  The policies refer to international instruments such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the National Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan, Vision 2030, as well as the third National Development Plan (NDP III).

The research programme will similarly look at identifying the gaps in the research agenda, and where appropriate, foster North-South research collaborations.  Unam has requested for N$15 million for research and development, and it received N$5 million last year, which will be used to do some of the planned research areas identified under this programme.

This will be a collaborative project with various Unam bodies taking part, as well as the University of Oxford through the Tyndall Centre.

Pro-Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration with Unam, Dr Boniface Mutumba, said Namibia, though its contribution to greenhouse gasses is negligible, the country is singled out as most affected by the impacts of climate change.  In Namibia there is a general perception that climate trends differ remarkably from the past: there are more droughts and flooding; the rainy seasons are shorter with more irregular rainfall.

“Whereas mitigation at the international level needs to be dealt with collectively, Namibia, as a country and SADC [Southern African Development Community], as a region, must find ways to adapt and reduce their vulnerability,” said Mutumba.

Moreover, said Mutumba, Namibia’s Vision 2030 is about becoming an industrialised country, and hence needs to think about low carbon development and reducing emissions wherever possible.

The Copenhagen climate discussions aimed to come up with emission reduction targets and the enforcement of a future regime by 2012 at the end of the Kyoto Protocol period.  This means the implementation of mechanisms such as the clean development mechanism, and others contained in national policies, accounting issues and the role of land-use change.

It was further resolved to demand from developed countries to reduce their carbon emissions by up to 40 percent below the 1990 greenhouse emission levels by 2020, as well as to reduce up to 95 percent below the 1990 levels by 2050 to achieve climate stabilisation.

At Copenhagen last December, most vulnerable countries hoped for a binding agreement that would limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius rather than the two degrees Celsius favoured by the G20 powerful nations. Namibia, like the rest of Africa, called for real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from developed countries that are the main culprits in turning the atmosphere into a dustbin.  Namibia further called for strengthened international cooperation on climate change, then enhancement of adaptive capacity and technological advancement.

Weaker countries wanted an agreement on how to support adaptation to climate change at national level, with funding pledges and technology transfer from industrialised countries, and an arrangement that would deal with forest nations to reduce emissions from deforestation.

But as is now well known, the Copenhagen conference ended in two different processes: one where negotiations among the 192 parties to the UNFCCC continued. The other, where about 25 world leaders came up with the Copenhagen Accord.  This accord is not binding and has no targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Countries were merely asked to list their voluntary actions as an appendix to the accord.

But the accord does propose short-term funding for adaptation in vulnerable countries, but critics said that it lacks essential detail such as where the money is to come from, and whether it will be in the form of loans or grants.

However, the target figure was US$30 billion over a period of three years from this year up to 2013.  Developed countries pledged to mobilise US$100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries to mitigate climate change challenges.  To break the deadlock, said Uazamo Kaura from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, there must be political will.

She said vulnerable countries are politically engaged, but not enough alliances have been forged to cater for powerful brokerage.  Further, she said, countries need to gear themselves up for intense preparation on key issues.

Consensus was reached in three areas, said Kaura. These were that least developed countries may prepare low-emission development plans, that countries should establish mechanisms to record mitigation actions, and that nations prepare greenhouse gas inventories annually.

Namibia has registered its support to the Accord and this was supported by Cabinet as a building block for future internationally legally binding agreements on climate change.

To that end, said Mutumba, Unam as a leading tertiary institution has an obligation to advance climate change research.   It was, for example, found that Namibian women are especially exposed to climate change-related risks due to existing gender disparities, discrimination, inequality and inhibiting gender roles, said Professor Oliver Ruppel of Unam. And more so for elderly women and girls, he observed.

Rural women, he said, are particularly affected by effects on agriculture and deteriorating living conditions there. These women are furthermore left vulnerable because of unequal rights to property, exclusion from decision-making, and due to difficulties to access information and financial services.

A study done by Margaret Angula, also from Unam, on the effects of climate change on women in northern Namibia, found that a non-agricultural adjustment has taken place.   Women in the Epyehsona village, for example, have started to engage in sewing, brick-making, selling traditional drinks, selling crafts, and so on.   In Daures, there is a trend of farmers changing to small-scale mining of semi-precious stones.

Angula observed that women lack technical skills and therefore engage more in informal employment activities, while income-generating capacities between men and women differ markedly.  Hence, she said, men are generally better prepared for climatic events than women because of their improved socio-economic position.

Ruppel similarly said that to adequately address the potential negative effects of climate change, environmental law and human rights law – of which there is a plethora of in Namibian legislation – have to be applied cumulatively and interactively “like gears”.

He further proposed that customary law and indigenous knowledge be incorporated into climate change policies that can lead to the development of effective adaptation strategies that are cost-effective, participatory and sustainable.”