31 Oct 2023

Many families  in Botswana, especially in the Ngamiland area are still dependent on gathering natural resources, thereby exposing them to the direct wrath of climate change.

Contributing from the floor during a panel discussion on climate change and pandemic preparedness in Gaborone recently, Okavango Research Institute director, Professor Joseph Mbaiwa said that this was likely to result in a high rate of malnutrition in the area.

“About 90 per cent of people in the Ngami area depend on fish and other water related foods such as tswii, but now that the water in the area is dwindling annually, poverty is likely to rise,” he said, indicating that the Thamalakane River was already showing signs of drying up, all due to climate change.

Prof. Mbaiwa said the reduction in water levels was also likely to increase human-wildlife conflict as natural resources became scarce.

One of the panelists, Dr Joseph Makhema who is also Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership CEO said it was the duty of scientists to give relevant data as much as possible.

“Our duty is to provide data without fear or favour to our political leadership, and they will account for whatever decision they take with that data,” he said.

Dr Makhema also said that it was only natural that countries that emitted more should be held responsible to support mitigation strategies. He said that their assistance should not just be in the form of compensation, but providing the right technology for environmentally friendly energy generation and cushion against risks among others. Another panelist, Dr

Oliver Moses, a meteorologist researcher at the Okavango Research Institute warned that the frequency and intensity of climate change related phenomena such as floods and droughts were likely to increase annually, but mitigation had been a challenge due to lack of funds.

For her part, German ambassador to Botswana, Ms Margit Hellwig-Boette said that she was happy that her country was putting more funds into climate change mitigation despite it contributing just about one per cent of total emissions.

She said that as the world was heading to the COP28 in Dubai this year, it was paramount to start putting health issues at the top.

Meanwhile, a member of the National Climate Change Negotiating team, Mr Balisi Gopolang said that Botswana was a carbon sink due to the fact that 40 per cent of its land mass was for conservation.

He also said that the global community had agreed to create a fund called Costs and Damage Fund, which worked like an insurance policy to enable speedy compensation to nations affected by climate change.

“This will help nations address their climate change related needs immediately, unlike existing funds such as Green Climate Fund which took time to release funds,” he said  adding that the agreement of the fund would be finalised during the coming COP 28 meeting.

Mr Gopolang also said that government was still finalising legislation on the use of private solar to feed the national grid, especially the issue of compensation.

He was responding to contributors’ concerns  on what they termed government’s tardiness in embracing solar powered energy. Ends