14 Dec 2015

The Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Mr Tshekedi Khama, on Thursday (December 10) joined other ministers from around the world and negotiators in France to negotiate an agreement on climate change.

The agreement was seen by many as the best tool and last opportunity to reverse effects of climate change.

A press release from the ministry stated that Botswana was negotiating as part of the African Group of Negotiations and G77 and China. The release said at these negotiations, an ambition of 1.5 degrees Celsius was the target for these groups.

 It indicated that the latest text had removed Africa from the disadvantaged groups and this had potential of disadvantaging countries such as Botswana that were graded as middle income countries.

 It added that most of the least developed countries were  in Africa and it was therefore important that their special circumstances were taken into consideration.

 Africa, it said, was prone to climate change due to its vast land mass and therefore an increase above 1.5 degrees Celsius would be catastrophic for the African continent.

The release further stated that means of implementation such as finance and clean technologies were high on the agenda.

It stated that of utmost importance would be the issue of differentiation where developed countries should be seen to finance both adaptation and mitigation as well as means of implementation.

 It also stated that the Africa group was also looking to make sure that there were funding mechanisms in place to enable them to build capacity to withstand effects of climate change. Parties, it said, were resolute on their positions as for most of them were in a precarious situation.

The release also stated that some parties such as the small island development states, least developed countries and Africa had unique circumstances, which made it impossible to shift from their current situation as people were already dying from climate related natural disasters in their countries.

This, it stated, had made the negotiations difficult and therefore progress had been slow. An outcome of the negotiations was expectated on Saturday. Ends