07 Nov 2021

Botswana is looking into forging long-term partnerships with Australia to tap into their renewable energy strategies and fire management techniques, Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Ms Philda Kereng has said.

Australia is well-known for successfully exploiting renewable energy resources with over 20 per cent of the continent’s electricity coming from solar, wind and hydro power.

In its 2015-2020 climate change Paris Agreement, Australia also made a USD1.5 billion climate finance commitment over the five years to support developing countries in reducing emissions and adapting to climate change effects.

It was against this background that Ms Kereng met with the Australian climate coordinator and deputy secretary for the department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Mr James Larsen at the ongoing climate change conference held in Glasgow, Scotland to discuss possible areas of collaboration on research and capacity building towards production of sustainable and clean energy.

“Botswana would like to learn and benefit from Australia’s success stories and also benchmark on your technologies for producing green and sustainable energy. We are looking into opportunities that could help our country reduce imported energy,” she said.

She further expressed interest in strengthening collaboration structures with Australia on issues of fire management, which is currently a concern for Botswana.

She noted that the country needed intervention on fire response and community involvement to avoid loss of human lives and livestock, among other devastating effects.

In response, Mr Larsen said even though their partnerships were usually through the broader pacific region, there was potential for collaboration and further engagements on technology transfer and capacity building.

He attributed Australia’s solar energy success story to the continent’s high solar radiation.

In order to mitigate the effects of climate change caused by fires, he noted that they had technologies that operated through a satellite by sending clear warnings of adverse weather events.

He thus underscored the need for risk and early warning systems that also made specific assessment of such weather conditions.

That, he added, could go a long way in timely mitigation and response.

He further noted that Austria boasted a robust community-based response strategy for forest fires, which both mitigates the effects on people and animals, while at the same time reducing emissions. ENDS