06 Feb 2024

Minister of Finance, Ms Peggy Serame says the economy is highly vulnerable to climate change which mainly affects the agricultural and tourism sectors.

Presenting the 2024/2025 budget proposal yesterday, Ms Serame said the condition called for urgent and targeted responses to climate change. She proposed a development budget of P1.37 billion to augment existing donor funds.

She said the budget would enhance economic resilience and protect livelihoods of the most vulnerable members of society. Ms Serame also said government was aware that fostering sustainable green growth required adequate climate adaptation and mitigation measures.

Consequently, she said building on progress made in reviewing existing environmental legislation and integrating climate change requirements into the public finance management strategies, the 2024/2025 budget was also focused on projects and programmes that mitigated climate change shocks, adding that it was also to ensure that they sustainably adapted to the emerging adverse situations.

Minister Serame said Botswana continued to meet her obligations for multi-lateral environmental agreements through the cross sectoral implementation of national action plans such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, UN Convention on Combating Desertification and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

She said the international agreements assisted Botswana in achieving her conservation objectives and addressing environmentally related effects such as pollution. Among others, Ms Serame said it also supported the implementation of international environmental conventions on biodiversity, climate change and desertification.

She said the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) emphasised the urgent need for nations to transition away from fossil fuels to renewables and energy efficiency. She said Botswana planned to increase the rate of transition from fossils to renewables from two per cent to 30 per cent by 2030.

She added that there was need to scale up climate financing which was a key enabler to facilitate those developments for green transition.

She further said Botswana had joined the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Change to support countries in the coalition. She also said it was to strengthen institutional capacities and enhance international collaboration and collective climate action, including mobilising climate finance.  ENDS