03 Dec 2018

 President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi says Botswana has renewed her commitment to carbon footprint reduction as espoused by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Addressing the United Nations climate change conference or COP24 in Katowice, Poland on December 3, President Masisi said Botswana’s ability to meet the pledge was incumbent on financial support from  developed countries.

“In this regard we would like to renew our commitment to the international community that we remain resolute on our pledges. Pursuant to the Paris Agreement was the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SGD’s). In this regard Botswana has concluded a process of SDG’s mapping. I am proud to inform you that most of them have been mainstreamed into the national planning agenda and processes,” he said.

President Masisi said as the world gathered in Poland to finalise the Paris Agreement, everyone had to learn from previous experiences.

“We must ensure that we have realistic and agreed rule-based system to make the Paris Agreement a success. Without a set of rules to ensure predictable and measurable actions we cannot achieve goals set by the Paris Agreement,” he added.

President Masisi stressed the  importance of rules relating to financial mobilisation for support to developing countries  through various funding mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund.

President Masisi said gatherings such as COP24 indicated that issues pertaining to climate change were taken seriously. 

He said Botswana had not been sparred from the negative effects of climate change as it was experiencing unusually extreme temperature patterns. 

Dr Masisi pointed out that the world was currently grappling with the intergovernmental panel on climate change findings on the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature stabilisation, which if not achieved could result in negative consequences to humans and the environment.

In his welcome remarks, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the concentration of carbon dioxide was the highest it had been in three million years.

“Emissions are now growing again. The recent special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that warming could reach 1.5 degrees as soon as 2030, with devastating impacts. The latest UN Environment Programme Emissions Gap Report tells us that the current Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement will lead to global warming of about 3 degrees by the end of the century,” he said.

Mr Guterres said the majority of countries most responsible for green house gas emissions were behind in their efforts to meet their Paris pledges. ENDS