Don’t come empty handed – Kapata tells experts
….our people expect results
Katowice, December 5, 2018
The Honourable Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Ms. Jean Kapata has urged Zambian experts at the ongoing climate change meeting in the Polish city of Katowice to get a share of the resources needed to implement climate change programs and projects in Zambia.
Ms. Kapata, who is also Member of Parliament for Mandevu constituency said the experts needed to ensure that they did not leave the meeting empty handed.
“You heard the Secretary General of the United Nations’ message to this conference that we are in deep trouble as an international community owing to our failure to quickly address climate change”, the Minister said as she encouraged the 13-member delegation to embrace their responsibilities seriously.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources Mr. Trevor Kaunda urged the experts to help create an understanding among lawmakers and ordinary people what they were doing in climate change.
He noted that while there were projects addressing climate change in various constituencies, experts needed to devise ways of educating the public to understand them as such.
“When you visit constituencies, MPs may be asking what you are doing there in climate change because your work as experts is also to show both lawmakers and ordinary people the linkages”, Mr. Kaunda said.
On his part, Zambia’s Ambassador to Germany and Poland, His Excellency Anthony Mukwita told the Zambian delegation that his mission is expected to make follow ups beyond COP 24.
“There are decisions to be made at this conference and it is our duty as an embassy to play our part in ensuring the implementation of promises made”, said Mr. Mukwita.
The Zambian team of experts has divided itself into the five major thematic areas of the conference that include resource mobilization, technology, capacity building, and issues related to the operationalization of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The two-week-long conference that ends on the 14th of December is expected to come up with a framework of implementing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Zambia experienced devastating effects of climate change between 2015 and 2016 when rainfall levels dropped drastically forcing mining companies to slow down copper production due to shortages in energies as load shedding kicked in while the crop yield reduced drastically due to power harvests resulting into house hold poverty.
Zambia depends largely on hydro generated power therefore making it an easy victim of adverse climate change effects such as droughts and floods.
Cognisant of the harsh reality of climate change bad effects President Edgar Lungu on receiving the invitation passed the relay stick over to Minister Kapata and her delegation that includes PS Trevor Kaunda as a show of commitment to the global cause.
Some 28,000 diplomat’s government officials, activists and scientists including some 40 heads of states and governments are attending the conference that must shape the way the globe can keep global warming at below the dangerous spot of 1.5 degrees Celsius.